Citizens
For Legitimate Governmentis a multi-partisan
activist group established to expose the Bush
coup d'etat, and to oppose the Bush
occupation in all of its manifestations.

August
2007 Archives, Page Two

Was
the office of General Betrayus arming 'insurgents' in Iraq?Iraq
Weapons Are a Focus of Criminal Investigations 28 Aug 2007 Several
federal agencies are investigating a widening network of criminal cases
involving the purchase and delivery of billions
of dollars of weapons, supplies and other matériel to Iraqi
and American forces, according to American officials. The officials
said it amounted to the largest ring of fraud and kickbacks uncovered
in the conflict here. The inquiry has already led to several indictments
of Americans, with more expected, the officials said. One of the
investigations involves a senior American officer who worked closely
with Gen. David H. Petraeus [Betrayus] in setting up the logistics operation
to supply the Iraqi forces when General Petraeus was in charge of
training and equipping those forces in 2004 and 2005, American officials
said Monday.

Iraqis
'surrender' vacated British base in Basra to Shiite militiamen
27 Aug 2007 Shiite militiamen from the Mahdi Army took over the police
joint command centre in Basra yesterday as UK soldiers withdrew from
the facility and handed control to Iraqi police. Police left the building
when the militiamen, loyal to anti-US cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, arrived,
witnesses said.

British
PM: No Iraq Exit Timetable 27 Aug 2007 British troops in Iraq
have an important job to do and there is no fixed timetable for their
withdrawal, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Monday, despite speculation
that Britain will soon announce a major pullout.

Brown
signals no premature departure from Iraq 28 Aug 2007 Gordon
Brown has sent a coded signal to the US that British troops will not
cut and run from Iraq, despite the increasing attacks against them.
In his first pronouncements on the war since his visit to the US, the
Prime Minister has launched a robust defence of UK strategy in Iraq
and Afghanistan, insisting Britain continued to have "clear obligations
to discharge".

Saudis
set up force to guard oil plants 26 Aug 2007 Saudi Arabia has
begun setting up a 35,000-strong security force to protect its oil infrastructure
from potential attacks. The move underlines the kingdom’s growing concern
about its oil installations after threats from al-Qaeda [al-CIAduh]
to attack facilities in the Gulf, as well as rising tensions between
Iran and the US.

Iraqi
CBS translator abducted, killed 28 Aug 2007 An Iraqi translator
for CBS News [Anwar Abbas Lafta] was abducted from his home and later
killed, the network said Monday. It is the third death of a CBS News
employee in Iraq in less than two years.

Angry
Army denies weapons unsafe, malfunctioning 28 Aug 2007 The Army
has angrily denied reports that Australian troops are being sent to
war with weapons that malfunction under extreme conditions in the Middle
East. Documents obtained by the Seven Network have revealed Steyr rifles
used by Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel have had persistent
problems with locking, jamming, misfiring and faulty springs.

Assembly
passes Iraq ballot measure 27 Aug 2007 After nearly two hours
of passionate debate, the California Assembly approved legislation Monday
to ask voters whether they support ending the Iraq War and immediately
withdrawing troops. The advisory measure by Senate President Pro Tem
Don Perata previously passed the Senate, which is expected to concur
in amendments Thursday and send the bill to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

France's
Sarkozy raises prospect of Iran airstrikes 27 Aug 2007 French
President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Monday a diplomatic push by the world's
powers to rein in Tehran's nuclear program was the only alternative
to "an Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran." In his first major foreign
policy speech, Sarkozy emphasized his existing foreign policy priorities,
such as opposing Turkish membership of the European Union and pushing
for a new Mediterranean Union that he hopes will include Ankara.

Iran
resolves plutonium issues under atom pact: IAEA 27 Aug 2007
Iran has resolved U.N. questions about tests with plutonium, a key fuel
for atomic bombs, and the International Atomic Energy Agency considers
the matter closed, according to the text of an IAEA-Iran accord released
on Monday.

Thanks
to Bush: Afghan
Opium Trade Hits New Height --U.N.
Report Describes a Scale of Narcotics Production Not Seen in Two Centuries
28 Aug 2007 Opium production in Afghanistan has increased by 34 percent
over the past year, and the country is now the source of 93 percent
of the heroin, morphine and other opiates on the world market, according
to a report by the United Nations' anti-drug agency.

Afghanistan's
opium crop doubles in two years 28 Aug 2007 Afghanistan's opium
crop has doubled in two years to a new high, with the country almost
the sole supplier of the world's deadliest drug, the United Nations
said yesterday. Production was estimated to have increased by 34 per
cent this year with the number of [Bush-built] laboratories also increasing,
the UN said in its Annual Opium Survey.

Five
foreign soldiers killed in Afghanistan 28 Aug 2007 Five foreign
troops were killed in fighting in Afghanistan, taking the death toll
for international forces past 150 for the year as the Taliban insurgency
intensifies, officials said. This year's toll is fast approaching the
highest since the Taliban was ousted in 2001 by a US-led invasion.

U.S.
apologizes to Afghans for soccer ball snafu 27 Aug 2007 The
U.S. military said Monday it regretted any offense it may have caused
by giving out a soccer ball with the word Allah written on it as part
of a 'public relations' exercise in Afghanistan. [A more effective
public relations move might involve a scale-back of shooting anything
that moves. --LRP]

Police
Feel Wartime Pinch on Ammo --Target Practice Cut to Conserve
Bullets 28 Aug 2007 The U.S. military's soaring demand for small-arms
ammunition, fueled by two wars abroad, has left domestic police agencies
less able to quickly replenish their supplies, leading some to conserve
rounds by cutting back on weapons training, police officials said.

Long
deployments pressure National Guard 27 Aug 2007 The Pentagon
is asking National Guard troops and their families to make sacrifices
like never before in Iraq and other hot spots, the Army's chief of staff
[Gen. George Casey] told a conference bringing together citizen-soldiers
from across the country.

Hill
Democrats: Gonzales Resignation 'Not the End of the Story' 27
Aug 2007 House and Senate Democrats are vowing to press ahead with their
investigations into allegations of an overly politicized Justice Department
while calling on President [sic] Bush to nominate a consensus replacement
for departing Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales. "This resignation
is not the end of the story. Congress must get to the bottom of this
mess and follow the facts where they lead, into the White House," Senate
Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said in a statement.

Gonzo
a goner, but NSA surveillance here to stay --Surveillance
and torture enthusiast resigns, but legacy intact By Burke Hansen
27 Aug 2007 ...[W]hile Alberto Gonzalez, the Attorney General who slayed
the habeas corpus beast, made torture official policy, and brought
warrantless surveillance to a neighborhood near you called
it quits today, his legacy will stay with us for years to come...
Ultimately, it will be up to the courts to undo the damage done, as
Gonzalez spent so much time walking all over the fundamental rights
of Americans he's practically left footprints on the Bill of Rights.
Thanks to his stewardship, American citizens can now be classed as enemy
combatants, spied on without warrants, imprisoned indefinitely without
charges or redress to the courts, and subjected to "enhanced interrogation"
techniques.

The
House Lawyer Departs (The New York Times) 28 Aug 2007 This administration
has illegally spied on Americans, detained suspects indefinitely as
"enemy combatants," run roughshod over the Geneva Conventions,
violated the Hatch Act prohibitions on injecting politics into government
and defied Congressional subpoenas. In each case, Mr. Gonzales gave
every indication of being on the side of the lawbreakers, not the law.
Mr. Gonzales signed off on the administration’s repugnant, and disastrous,
torture policy when he was the White House counsel. He later helped
stampede Congress into passing the Military Commissions Act of 2006,
which endorsed illegal C.I.A. prisons where detainees may be tortured
and established kangaroo courts in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to keep detained
foreigners in custody essentially for life. He helped cover up and perpetuate
Mr. Bush’s illegal wiretapping programs, both in the counsel’s job and
as attorney general. The F.B.I. under his stewardship abused powers
it was given after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the name of enhanced
national security... There is talk that the
president [sic] might make a recess appointment, taking advantage
of Congress's vacation to name someone who would not need to be confirmed
by the Senate.

Attorney
General Alberto Gonzales Resigns 27 Aug 2007 Attorney General
Alberto R. Gonzales announced his resignation today, ending a controversial
cabinet tenure that included clashes with Congress over the firing of
nine U.S. attorneys and over the use of warrantless wiretaps in the
war on [of] terror.

Larry
Craig quits Romney campaign as news of lewd-conduct allegation spreads
27 Aug 2007 U.S. Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) pleaded guilty to disorderly
conduct this month after his arrest in a Minneapolis airport men’s room
by an undercover officer who said Craig was sending signals that he
wanted to have sex. Craig agreed today to resign as the U.S. Senate
co-chairman of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign. Craig served as
co-chair with Robert Bennett of Utah.

US
Senator pleads guilty after toilet arrest 28 Aug 2007 A Republican
Senator has confirmed that he pleaded guilty earlier this month to a
charge of disorderly conduct after he was arrested at an airport in
the United States. Senator Larry Craig of Idaho was arrested in June
by a plain-clothes police officer investigating complaints of lewd conduct
in the men's public toilet at the Minneapolis-St Paul International
Airport, the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call reports.

US
Republican Senator denies lewd conduct in airport bathroom 27
Aug 2007 US Republican Senator Larry Craig on Monday denied "inappropriate
conduct" after he was arrested by police investigating alleged lewd
incidents in an airport bathroom. Craig was arrested in the Midwestern
city of Minneapolis-St Paul in June by a plain clothes police officer,
the Roll Call newspaper, which covers Congress, reported.

Senator
Arrested, Pleads Guilty Following Incident in Airport Restroom27
Aug 2007 Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) was arrested in June at a Minnesota
airport by a plainclothes police officer investigating lewd conduct
complaints in a men’s public restroom, according to an arrest report
obtained by Roll Call Monday afternoon. Craig’s arrest occurred just
after noon on June 11 at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.
On Aug. 8, he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct in the
Hennepin County District Court. He paid more than $500 in fines and
fees, and a 10-day jail sentence was stayed.

Ex-GOP
official gets special prosecutor 27 Aug 2007 A judge has appointed
a special prosecutor to investigate sexual misconduct allegations against
a former southern Indiana county Republican chairman who had also headed
a national group for young Republicans... Glenn Murphy Jr. announced
Aug. 7 that he was resigning as Clark County's GOP chairman and as president
of the Young Republican National Federation because of a new business
opportunity that would prohibit him from holding a partisan political
office. A police report then became public in which a 22-year-old man
told investigators he awoke after a party at a relative's house in Jeffersonville
to find Murphy, who also had attended the event, performing a sex act
on him.

Bush
Motorcade Crash Kills N.M. Officer 27 Aug 2007 A police officer
in President [sic] Bush's motorcade crashed his motorcycle and died
Monday, less than a year after a crash in Hawaii killed another motorcycle
officer accompanying the president.

Bush
bin Laden poised to strike before the 2008 'elections:'"We
Are Going to Get Hit Again" --The head of the National
Counterterrorism Center speaks out on Al Qaeda's plans, America’s readiness—and
the nature of the war on [of] terror. 27 Aug 2007 Al Qaeda [al-CIAduh]
has an active plot to hit the West. The United
States knows about it but doesn’t have enough tactical detail
to issue a precise warning or raise the threat level, says Vice Admiral
(ret.) John Scott Redd, who heads the government’s National Counterterrorism
Center. In an interview at his headquarters near Washington, D.C., Redd
told Newsweek’s Mark Hosenball and Jeffrey Bartholet that the country
is better prepared than ever to counter such threats. But he also believes
another successful terror attack on the U.S. 'homeland' is inevitable.

Five
men arrested over alleged bomb plot in Sydney 28 Aug 2007 Five
men were arrested today over a plot to bomb ATM and bank safes. Police
officers allege the men ordered enough chemicals to make 40kg of nitroglycerin
explosives from the Northern Territory, sparking a national security
scare. Federal police officers were also involved in the operation.
Chief Superintendent Peter Dein from the Counter Terrorism Command said
police had ruled out any link [?!?] between the plot of manufacturing
explosives and the forthcoming APEC summit.

"No-Evacuation
Required During a Bird Flu Outbreak"--Chlorine
Dioxide Gas to Be Used to Create 'Virus-Free' Areas--Experimental
data and practical applications of chlorine dioxide 'against' pandemic
influenza to be presented at international bird flu summit in the US.
(New-Fields) 27 Aug 2007 At the 5th International Bird Flu Summit organized
by New-Fields
Exhibition Inc., Dr. Norio Ogata of the Japanese Taiko Pharmaceutical
Co., Ltd. is to present the company’s experimental data and practical
applications of chlorine dioxide 'against' pandemic influenza. The product
to be launched uses chlorine dioxide gas to create virus-free living
spaces.

Now, what's interesting about New-Fields? ('We
find new-fields for you.') New-Fields, uniting and marketing corpora-terrorists
who are trying to start (and profit from) an avian flu pandemic, are
also actually hosting the Iraqi
Oil & Gas Technology Conference in Istanbul, Turkey, 5-6 September
2007. (New-Fields) It has been estimated that with its natural resources
Iraq has the potential to earn between $10 billion and $15 billion over
the next few years. The Iraqi oil industry faces three distinct phases
of development... The immediate task is restoring historical capacity
which could require an investment of $5-10 billion and take 18 to 24
months. This work could be carried out under the auspices of an occupation
regime... The second phase is developing prospects already found,
raising capacity significantly. Cost is estimated at $40-80 billion,
with a lead-time of seven to 10 years, depending upon the scope of the
program. This work would need a legitimate
government to assign new contracts... The third phase would
be new exploration... and that also would require a legitimate
government to negotiate fresh exploration rights. Iraq also
has a substantial natural gas potential that could be used for industrial
and power generation purposes. [People need to question the possible
links between those running/managing (mismanaging) and profiting from
the Iraq war and those who are poised to run/manage (mismanage) and
profit from an avian
flu pandemic. --LRP]

Germany
to enforce buffer zone around bird flu farm 27 Aug 2007 The
European Commission and Germany on Monday agreed to implement a 15-kilometre
(10-mile) buffer zone around a Bavarian farm after the discovery of
the highly pathogenic strain of H5N1 bird flu, an EU spokesman said.

British
DNA database riddled with errors 28 Aug 2007 Civil liberties
campaigners and MPs have raised doubts about the national DNA database
after the British Home Office confirmed it contained more than 500,000
false or wrongly recorded names. Suspects arrested over any imprisonable
offence, including rape and murder, can have their DNA held even if
they are not charged or are acquitted.

US
orders emergency checks on newer Boeing 737s 27 Aug 2007 U.S.
aviation authorities have ordered emergency inspections of newer model
Boeing Co. 737 jetliners in response to last week's explosion and fire
that destroyed a China Airlines plane in Japan, officials said on Monday.

Speculation
grows about Chertoff as attorney general 27 Aug 2007 White House
Homeland Security Advisor Frances Townsend has turned down a request
that she consider being the next Homeland Security Secretary, stoking
speculation that former prosecutor and federal judge Michael Chertoff
may be the front-runner to replace Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
Townsend, a native Long Islander, said she declined the job of Homeland
Security Secretary currently held by Chertoff in a recent conversation
with the White House, said a source with direct knowledge of the conversation.

Clement
Replacing Gonzales: More Than An 'Acting' AG?
By John Harwood 27 Aug 2007 White House sources confirm that U.S. Solicitor
General Paul Clement will serve as acting Attorney General once Alberto
Gonzales leaves the Justice Department in mid-September. And to judge
from initial soundings across Washington, no one will be surprised if
Clement eventually becomes President [sic] Bush's choice to fill the
job for the remainder of his term.

US
Attorney General Gonzales steps down Sept. 17 27 Aug 2007 Attorney
General Alberto Gonzales [aka Tortureboy] resigned on Monday, ending
a controversial tenure as chief U.S. law enforcement officer that blemished
the administration of President [sic] George W. Bush. Gonzales announced
at the Justice Department that his resignation would take effect on
Sept. 17. He refused to take questions from reporters and gave no reason
for his sudden decision to depart after months of controversy. [Maybe
it should be pointed out that September 17th is Constitution
Day. How fitting for Gonzales to resign then. --CLGer Martin
K. Fleming, Tarboro, NC.]

Gonzales
resigns as U.S. attorney general --Bush 'very reluctantly accepted'
resignation of longtime ally, official says 27 Aug 2007 Embattled
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, under fire from congressional Democrats
and even some Republicans, announced Monday that he has resigned from
his post. "It has been one of my greatest privileges to lead [destroy]
the Department of Justice," Gonzales said at a news conference,
announcing his resignation effective Sept. 17.

Northwest
lawmakers hail Gonzales resignation 27 Aug 2007 Pacific Northwest
Democrats hailed the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales,
saying his honesty and competence as leader of the Justice Department
were in question.

Quotes
About Gonzales' Resignation (AP) 27 Aug 2007 "It has been
a long and difficult struggle but at last, the attorney general has
done the right thing and stepped down. ...We Democrats implore you (Bush)
to work with us. Don't choose the path of confrontation and throw down
the gauntlet we are willing to meet you in the middle of the road. All
we ask is that you choose somebody who puts the rule of law first. we're
not looking for confrontation here.'' -Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

Baath
party spokesman dismisses plan to ease ban on party members
26 Aug 2007 A purported spokesman for Saddam Hussein's party Sunday
dismissed draft legislation to ease the ban on party members from holding
government jobs, saying his group would not deal with the Iraqi leadership
until all U.S. and foreign forces leave the country.

Iraq
Sunni Arabs won't rejoin cabinet despite deal 27 Aug 2007 A
new political accord between Iraq's main Sunni Arab, Shi'ite and Kurdish
leaders will not be enough to lure minority Sunni Arabs back into the
government, the Sunni Arab vice president who signed it said on Monday.

Sarkozy
calls for timetable for Iraq troop withdrawal 27 Aug 2007 French
President Nicolas Sarkozy called for a clear timetable to be set for
the withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq in his first major foreign
policy address. 'The Iraq tragedy cannot leave us indifferent. France
was, thanks to Jacques Chirac, and remains hostile to this war,' which
was triggered by the US invasion in 2003, he said at the fifteenth Conference
of Ambassadors in Paris.

Edwards
stresses import of troop withdrawal from Iraq 27 Aug 2007 Democratic
presidential hopeful John Edwards said yesterday that Congress should
continue to push for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq regardless of
what top military advisers say in their progress report next month.

Warner
May Back Dems' Bill on Withdrawal 27 Aug 2007 GOP Sen. John
Warner, who wants U.S. troops to start coming home from Iraq by Christmas,
said Sunday he may support Democratic legislation ordering withdrawals
if President [sic] Bush refuses to set a return timetable soon.

Former
US-installed Iraqi prime minister returning to Iraq --Allawi:
'We are going to fight for our country [the US-backed oil law].'
26 Aug 2007 Iraq's former [US-installed] interim prime minister accused
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki of fomenting the sectarian violence plaguing
the war-ravaged nation and said Sunday he will return to Baghdad soon
to "reverse the course in Iraq." However, Ayad Allawi's ties to a powerful
Washington-based GOP
lobbying firm is raising eyebrows as President [sic] Bush has adamantly
expressed his support for al-Maliki. Speaking from Amman, Jordan, Allawi
told CNN that he will push for "a less sectarian, nonsectarian course"
when he goes back to Baghdad next week -- and al-Maliki's
ouster may be part of the solution.
[See: Powerhouse
GOP firm working to undermine Iraqi PM 23 Aug 2007 A powerhouse
Republican lobbying firm with close ties to the White House has begun
a public campaign to undermine the government of Iraqi Prime Minister
Nuri al-Maliki, CNN has confirmed. See: Barbour
Griffith & Rogers' agreement with Ayad Allawi 24 Aug 2007.]

Iraq's
al-Maliki tells U.S. critics to "come to their senses" 27 Aug
2007 Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki lashed out Sunday at U.S.
politicians who have called on him to step down and accused U.S. forces
of committing "big mistakes" in killing and detaining civilians in the
hunt for 'insurgents.' It was the second outburst from the embattled
leader in recent days as he has come under fire from an array of allies
and adversaries who accuse him of failing to unite his Cabinet and put
key [oil] laws and programs in place.

US
'Wellstones' witnesses against US war criminal, so trial cannot proceed:
Witnesses
In Army Trial Killed In Crash 26 Aug 2007 Several U.S. Army
soldiers killed in a helicopter crash in Iraq last week were to be witnesses
[for
the prosecution] in the homicide trial of their former superior.
Honolulu's KITV reported Sunday that some of the soldiers who died in
the crash had been scheduled to testify in the trial of Sgt. 1st Class
Trey Corrales, who is accused of orchestrating the death of an Iraqi
prisoner this year. Corrales, who was in the same Hawaii-based platoon
as the soldiers killed in Wednesday's crash, allegedly shot the prisoner
repeatedly June 23. He is accused of then ordering his subordinate
and fellow defendant, Spc. Christopher Shore, to continue shooting the
man.

Report:
U.S. Attack Kills 13 Iraqi Civilians 24 Aug 2007 An overnight
U.S. helicopter raid in Baghdad killed at least 13 Iraqi civilians,
many of them people sleeping on roofs to keep cool, a report says. At
least 20 people were wounded in the Shula district in the western part
of the city, Alalam Satellite TV reported Friday. Many of the wounded
were women and children, it said.

US
taxpayers shelling out million$ in bribes
for those willing to fight for Exxon Mobil in Iraq: Many
Take Army's 'Quick Ship' Recruit Incentive$20,000
Is Lure to Leave Within Days 27 Aug 2007 More than 90 percent of
the Army's new recruits since late July have accepted a $20,000 "quick
ship" bonus to leave for basic combat training by the end of September,
putting thousands of Americans into uniform almost immediately. The
initiative is part of an effort by Army officials to meet year-end recruiting
goals after a two-month slump earlier this year.

Troops
Cheer Call For Iraq Withdrawal --Governor's Call For U.S.
Withdrawal From Iraq Greeted With Standing Ovation At National Guard
Conference 26 Aug 2007 A call by Puerto Rico's governor for a U.S.
withdrawal from Iraq earned a standing ovation from a conference of
more than 4,000 National Guardsmen. Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila said Saturday
that the U.S. administration has "no new strategy and no signs of success"
and that prolonging the war would needlessly put guardsmen in harm's
way.

Afghanistan
poppy harvest jumps 18 per cent 27 Aug 2007 The United Nations
is to release figures for drug production in Afghanistan that will show
another reverse for the British-led effort to control the drug trade.
The Daily Telegraph understands that annual production is expected to
have risen by 18 per cent to about 7,200 tons - the sixth consecutive
rise since 2001 [due to Bush's explosive growth in opium production
and drug trade].

Record-breaking
opium crop destabilises Afghanistan 26 Aug 2007 Afghanistan's
poppy harvest is expected to top all records this year as the country
spirals deeper into a vicious circle of drugs, corruption and insecurity.
A United Nations report due on Monday will announce that Afghanistan
is now producing nearly 95 percent of the world's opium, up from 92
percent in 2006, officials and diplomats say.

MacKay
briefed on what not to say about Khadr
26 Aug 2007 The foreign affairs minister was advised to dismiss questions
about whether Canada would even accept the repatriation of Omar Khadr,
a Canadian held in the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, much
less ask Washington for it. Newly released documents reveal that reams
of paperwork were created to help advise former minister Peter MacKay
and his spokespeople on how to answer questions on Khadr, even though
they said virtually nothing about the case for more than a year.

Closing
arguments Monday in court-martial of Abu Ghraib officer 26 Aug
2007 The U.S. military's cherished chain of command is being tested
by the court-martial of an Army officer accused of fostering the abuse
of Abu Ghraib prison prisoners in Iraq. Monday's closing arguments before
a panel of nine colonels and a brigadier general will summarize the
conflicting notions of command responsibility that lawyers repeatedly
hit upon during four days of testimony last week.

The
TOPOFF 4 Full-Scale Exercise
--A Rigorous Full-Scale Response to a Coordinated Attack (DHS)
29 May 2007 Taking place October 15-24, 2007, the TOPOFF 4 Full-Scale
Exercise (T4 FSE) will feature thousands of Federal, State, territorial,
and local officials. These officials will engage in various activities
as part of a robust, full-scale simulated response to a multi-faceted
threat. The exercise will address policy and strategic issues that mobilize
prevention and response systems, require participants to make difficult
decisions, carry out essential functions, and challenge their ability
to maintain a common operating picture during an incident of national
significance.

Private
Sector Participation for Top Officials 4 Exercise Top Officials
Exercises are congressionally mandated exercises designed to strengthen
the nation’s capacity to prevent [foment], prepare for, respond to,
and recover from large-scale terrorist attacks involving weapons of
mass destruction (WMDs). The Top Officials national counterterrorism
exercises offer the private sector an opportunity to collaborate with
the government and test plans for disaster response and recovery. Email:
private.sectorT4@dhs.gov.

Respiration
Date Vast NYPD Mask Recall 27 Aug 2007 The NYPD has recalled
an estimated 30,000 emergency devices designed to help cops breathe
after a terrorist blast, because the manufacturer warned they might
be defective, The New York Post has learned.

U.S.
insurance industry pressures Feds to help pay terrorism claims
26 Aug 2007 The U.S. insurance industry, responding to what it says
is a growing risk of chemical and biological terrorism, is pressing
Congress to dramatically increase its backing of terrorism insurance
policies. Industry analysts cite the increased [US] use of chlorine-enhanced
bombs and fuel-air explosives in Iraq, which the analysts view as a
test laboratory for terrorism.

'He
was detained because he was a health threat.'Atlanta
teen arrested, jailed for having TB 25 Aug 2007 (GA) When doctors
told Francisco Santos he had tuberculosis Friday, health officials said
the Gwinnett County 17-year-old refused to believe it. Gwinnett officials
acted decisively: They put Santos in jail Friday evening, in a rare
act of a government agency confining a sick person. Santos is the only
inmate in a special medical isolation cell designed for inmates with
contagious conditions. Two deputies guard him and the other medical
inmates. David Will, attorney for the Gwinnett County Board of Health,
said Santos is being held under a court order for confinement.

Gwinnett
resident jailed after refusing TB treatment 25 Aug 2007 A judge
ordered a Gwinnett County resident into custody on Friday after he refused
medical treatment for a case of "active, contagious tuberculosis," officials
said. The resident, identified as Francisco Santos, was ordered to
remain under arrest until a Sept. 5 hearing, said David Will, attorney
for the Gwinnett County Board of Health.

Undercover
cops tried to incite violence in Montebello: union leader --YouTube
video
shows union leaders trying to push back masked men 22 Aug 2007 Organizers
of the protests at the North American leaders' summit in Montebello,
Que., say they have video that shows police disguised as masked demonstrators
tried to incite violence on Monday. Retired police officer believes
masked men were cops: Meanwhile, a retired Ottawa police officer who
was formerly in charge of overseeing demonstrations for the force said
he questions who the masked men really are, after viewing the video.

Safety
fears over new register of all children 27 Aug 2007 Senior social
workers have given warning of the dangers posed by a new government
register that will store the details of every child in England from
next year. They fear that the database, containing the address, medical
and school details of all under-18s, could be used to harm the children
whom it is intended to protect. The Association of Directors of Children’s
Services (ACDS) has written to officials outlining its "significant"
concerns about the new system, called ContactPoint, The Times has learnt.

Senator's
Office Is Burglarized 27 Aug 2007 (Hartford, CT) Burglars broke
into Senator Christopher J. Dodd’s (D) office here late Saturday, taking
undisclosed items and leaving evidence at the scene, the police said.
Investigators declined to say what was stolen or what was left behind
at the office, which is on Lewis Street.

California
Republicans seek to rig 2008 presidential vote By WSWS reporter
27 Aug 2007 In a transparent effort to rig the outcome of the 2008 presidential
election, the California Republican Party has launched a petition drive
to place a referendum on the ballot in June 2008 that would split the
state’s huge bloc of electoral votes rather than awarding them based
on the traditional winner-take-all formula... The ballot proposition
was drafted by a Republican-backed group taking the name "Californians
for Equal Representation," set up by Thomas Hiltachk, a lawyer
who was involved in the 2003 recall petition that ousted Democrat Gray
Davis and installed Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Sacramento
statehouse.

US
could be heading for recession
27 Aug 2007 Former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers warned that the
United States may be heading into recession as the biggest victim to
date of the sub-prime mortgage debacle was humiliatingly sold for a
token sum in Germany. "I would say the risks of recession are now greater
than they've been any time since the period in the aftermath of 9/11,"
Mr Summers said.

Home
sales hit slowest pace in 5 years 27 Aug 2007 Sales of existing
homes dropped for a fifth straight month in July, falling to the slowest
pace in nearly five years, while home prices fell for a record 12th
consecutive month.

Greek
fires may be treated as terrorism 27 Aug 2007 A Greek prosecutor
today ordered an investigation into whether arson attacks, which have
been blamed for the worst forest fires in decades, could be considered
terrorist acts.

Fires
in Greece Threaten Historic Sites, Destroy Towns 27 Aug 2007
Fires raging across the country of Greece are have left thousands homeless,
and is threatening some of antiquity's most famous sites. Foreign countries
such as France, Italy, and Canada have joined Greek soldiers and firemen
in battling the towering fires. Cyprus rushed in more firefighters today,
and promised to help with reconstruction after the fires die down.

*****

'Operation
Noble Eagle' false flag operations underway:Florida
Troops
Deploy to Nation's Capital 24 Aug 2007 Members of the 1st Battalion
265 Air Defense Artillery have mobilized and are on a plane headed first
to Ft. Bliss, then for federal active duty in the capital region. The
troops will be deployed for a year. The 265th is part of Operation Noble
Eagle. They are ordered by the president [sic] to the nation's capital,
where they will operate high-tech weapons systems 'against' any potential
air threat.

Even
I question the 'truth' about 9/11 By Robert Fisk 25 Aug 2007
I am increasingly troubled at the inconsistencies in the official narrative
of 9/11. It's not just the obvious non sequiturs: where are the aircraft
parts (engines, etc) from the attack on the Pentagon? Why have the officials
involved in the United 93 flight (which crashed in Pennsylvania) been
muzzled? Why did flight 93's debris spread over miles when it was supposed
to have crashed in one piece in a field? ...I am talking about scientific
issues... What about the third tower – the so-called World Trade Centre
Building 7 (or the Salmon Brothers Building) – which collapsed in 6.6
seconds in its own footprint at 5.20pm on 11 September? Why did it so
neatly fall to the ground when no aircraft had hit it? ...Journalistically,
there were many odd things about 9/11. [This article so neatly summarizes
my view, and the extent of my view, on the anomalies of 9/11, that I
need to add nothing else at this time. -- Michael Rectenwald, Ph.D.]

What's
in a name? U.S. rebrands Iraq ex-insurgents 25 Aug 2007 U.S.
forces have rebranded one of the main 'insurgent' groups in Iraq and
now use the term "concerned local nationals" to refer to a group that
once claimed responsibility for killing
scores of Americans.

Insurgents
kill 22 villagers in Iraq
24 Aug 2007 About 200 gunmen stormed two villages in Diyala province
Thursday, killing at least 22 members of a Sunni Arab tribe and taking
15 women and children hostage in an attack thought to be retaliation
for their renunciation of Al Qaeda[al-CIAduh]-linked militants.

Iraq
body count running at double pace 25 Aug 2007 This year's U.S.
troop buildup has succeeded in bringing violence in Baghdad down from
peak levels, but the death toll from sectarian attacks around the country
is running nearly double the pace from a year ago.

US
surge sees 600,000 more Iraqis abandon home 25 Aug 2007 The
scale of the human disaster in the Iraq war has become clearer from
statistics collected by two humanitarian groups that reveal the number
of Iraqis who have fled the fighting has more than doubled since the
US military build-up began in February.

Car
bomb kills seven in Baghdad - police 25 Aug 2007 A car bomb
killed seven people and wounded 30 in a commercial area in northern
Baghdad [Kadhimiya] on Saturday, police said, despite a stepped-up security
presence in the capital ahead of a Shi'ite religious festival next week.

US
'will not stop' British pull-out at Basra Palace
26 Aug 2007 British troops will withdraw to the last military stronghold
in Iraq imminently, and will not be "swayed by domestic political considerations"
– including relations with the US – senior government sources said yesterday.

'I
don't see any progress. Just us getting killed... I don't want to be
here anymore.'GIs'
morale dips as Iraq war drags on --With tours extended, multiple
deployments and new tactics that put them in bare posts in greater danger,
they feel leaders are out of touch with reality. 25 Aug 2007 As
military and political leaders prepare to deliver a 'progress' report
on the conflict to Congress next month, many soldiers are increasingly
disdainful of the happy talk that they say commanders on the ground
and White House officials are using in their discussions about the war.
And they're becoming vocal about their frustration over longer deployments
and a taxing mission that keeps many living in dangerous and uncomfortably
austere conditions.

Critics
Say Army Putting Spin on Iraq Suicides
25 Aug 2007 Some veterans organizations, soldiers' relatives and psychiatrists
are raising questions about an Army report that says no direction connection
has been found between long troop deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan
and the army's highest suicide rate since the first Gulf War. The Army
report, released Aug. 16, said love and marriage problems were the main
reasons for the highest rate of suicides [!?!] since 1991. Nearly
a third of the 99 who committed suicide in 2006 were in Iraq or Afghanistan.

The
Great Iraq Swindle --How Bush Allowed an Army of For-Profit Contractors
to Invade the U.S. Treasury
--How is it done? How do you screw the taxpayer for millions, get away
with it and then ride off into the sunset with one middle finger extended,
the other wrapped around a chilled martini? Ask Earnest O. Robbins --
he knows all about being a successful contractor in Iraq. (Issue 1034,
The Rolling Stone) 23 Aug 2007 According to the most reliable ­estimates,
we have doled out more than $500 billion for the war, as well as $44
billion for the Iraqi reconstruction effort. And what did America's
contractors give us for that money? They built big steaming shit piles,
set brand-new trucks on fire, drove back and forth across the desert
for no reason at all and dumped bags of nails in ditches... But what
happened in Iraq went beyond inefficiency, beyond fraud even. This
was about the business of government being corrupted by the profit motive
to such an extraordinary degree that now we all have to wonder how we
will ever be able to depend on the state to do its job in the future.

Warner
presses for troop withdrawals 26 Aug 2007 GOP Sen. John Warner,
who wants U.S. troops to start coming home from Iraq by Christmas, said
Sunday he may support Democratic legislation ordering withdrawals if
President [sic] Bush refuses to set a return timetable soon. "I'm going
to have to evaluate it," Warner said.

Bush
Says U.S. Armed Forces Makes Gains in Iraq 25 Aug 2007 President
[sic] George W. Bush said that U.S. armed forces, working with local
leaders in Iraq, are making the military gains that are necessary for
political success and stability.

Local
activist organizes protest against Iraq War 23 Aug 2007 (San
Antonio, TX) GLBT activist and Happy Foundation executive director Gene
Elder announced this week that he is organizing a candlelight vigil
against the Iraq War in front of the Alamo at 7:00 p.m. on August 28.

Friendly
fire dead named as US opens inquiry 26 Aug 2007 Three soldiers
killed in Afghanistan in a "friendly fire" incident were named by the
Ministry of Defence last night... The MoD and the US State Department
have begun investigations into the incident.

Tensions
rise after three British soldiers killed in US airstrike
25 Aug 2007 Three British soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan in
a "friendly fire" attack by American aircraft while involved in a clash
with Taliban fighters. The fatal incident, a "blue on blue" in military
terms, took place at Kajaki in Helmand province, where British troops
are trying to create a safety zone around a dam which would enable an
American company to start repair work. [Right, the UK soldiers would
see the US corpora-terrorists destroying the dam so that they could
get more money to rebuild it.]

Suicide
bomb wounds three US-led troops in Kabul 25 Aug 2007 A suicide
car bomb exploded near a convoy of US-led occupation vehicles in the
Afghan capital Kabul on Saturday, wounding three foreign troops and
four Afghan civilians, the coalition said.

Commander
salutes Bliss' expansion, training role --$321 million in
new construction at Fort Bliss (TX) this year toward goal of accommodating
nearly 30,000 soldiers by 2011 23
Aug 2007 Undergoing a massive expansion while being called on to train
and mobilize troops headed for war is "leading the way" for the Army,
Fort Bliss commander Maj. Gen. Robert P. Lennox said Wednesday during
his State of the Military address at Biggs Army Airfield.

Military
cites risk of abuse by CIA --New Bush rules on detainees
stir concern 25 Aug 2007 Top military lawyers have told senators
that President [sic] Bush's new rules for CIA interrogations of suspected
terrorists could allow abuses that violate the Geneva Conventions, according
to Senate and military officials.

Scottish
inquiry into 'rendition' flights by CIA --Report alleges
airports in Scotland were used 107 times for refuelling by secret CIA
flights, which later carried at least six suspects24
Aug 2007 Fresh allegations that British airports were secretly used
by the CIA to "render" [kidnap] Islamist terror suspects to be tortured
in secret prisons or held in Guantánamo Bay are to be investigated by
Scottish prosecutors.

'I
have no hesitation in saying they were police agents . . . and they
were caught red-handed.'Police
accused of using provocateurs at summit 21 Aug 2007 Protesters
are accusing police of using undercover agents to provoke violent confrontations
at the North American leaders' summit in Montebello, Que. Such accusations
have been made before after similar demonstrations but this time the
alleged "agents provocateurs" have been caught
on camera.

'The
F.B.I. case was a hoax that grew out of the Bush administration’s misuse
of fear to turn our democracy into a dictatorship.' Spying
Program May Be Tested by Terror Case
26 Aug 2007 ...Before the trial,Yassin M. Aref’s lawyers asked the government
for information about the N.S.A. surveillance reported in The New York
Times. In March 2006, the government responded to one request with a
classified filing that the defense lawyers, who had security clearances,
were not allowed to see. That same day, Judge Thomas J. McAvoy denied
the defense request in a classified order.

Maybe
Trading Up Soon at Justice24
Aug 2007 The buzz among top Bushies is that beleaguered Attorney General
Alberto Gonzales finally plans to depart and will be replaced by Homeland
Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. Why Chertoff? Officials say he's
got fans on Capitol Hill, is untouched by the Justice prosecutor scandal,
and has more experience than Gonzales did, having served as a federal
judge and assistant attorney general.

GOP
scraps committee 25 Aug 2007 (IN) The Allen County Republican
chairman disbanded the party's executive committee because of its support
for an indicted candidate for mayor of Fort Wayne. Matt Kelty, charged
last week with nine counts, including perjury and violation of campaign-finance
laws, is scheduled to appear in court Oct. 10, when a trial date will
be set.

Clinton's
Democratic Rivals Denounce Terrorism Remark
25 Aug 2007 Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton drew outrage from her opponents
for the Democratic presidential nomination on Friday after saying that
a terrorist attack in the United States would give Republicans an edge
in the 2008 race. [Why? Clinton knows that Bush bin Laden is getting
ready to attack us again, so that the GOP can steal another 'election.']

Gag
me with a chainsaw!Obama
Names Republicans He'll Work With25 Aug 2007 Democratic presidential
candidate Barack Obama often says he will be a candidate that will bring
both parties together and Saturday he named a few of the Republicans
he would reach out to if 'elected.' "There are some very capable Republicans
who I have a great deal of respect for," Obama said in an interview
with The Associated Press. "The opportunities are there to create a
more effective relationship between parties."

Ninth
Circuit Court revives California bid for electricity refunds
25 Aug 20007 A federal appeals court has revived California's request
for at least $1 billion in refunds to electricity customers, saying
federal regulators who denied the repayments had ignored tapes in which
Enron traders joked about gouging customers during the energy crisis
of 2000-2001. The ruling was issued Friday by the Ninth U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals in San Francisco, which repeatedly has found that the
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission abused its authority or violated
its own rules in considering the state's claims of multibillion-dollar
overcharges during the energy crisis.

Fed
bends rules to help two big banks --If the Federal Reserve is
waiving a fundamental principle in banking regulation, the credit crunch
must still be sapping the strength of America's biggest banks. Fortune's
Peter Eavis documents an unusual Fed move. 24 Aug 2007 In a clear sign
that the credit crunch is still affecting the nation's largest financial
institutions, the Federal Reserve agreed this week to bend key banking
regulations to help out Citigroup and Bank of America, according to
documents posted Friday on the Fed's web site.

Deadly
bird flu found in German poultry farm
25 Aug 2007 An outbreak of deadly bird flu [highly pathogenic H5N1 strain]
has been identified in a southern German poultry farm, a spokeswoman
for Bavaria's environment ministry said on Saturday.

Greek
Fire Deaths Mount as Olympic Site Threatened 26 Aug 2007 The
death toll in Greece's forest fires reached at least 51 over the past
three days as flames engulfed the birthplace of the Olympic Games and
international assistance poured into the country.

*****

Bush:
'Look beyond the letter of the law.'U.S.
urges military court to allow terrorism trials to proceed 24
Aug 2007 The Bush regime, looking to jump-start its stalled terrorism
trials Friday, told a newly formed U.S. Court of Military Commission
Review to look beyond the letter of the law and allow its case against
Canadian detainee Omar Khadr, who is accused of killing a U.S. soldier
in Afghanistan [when he was 15 years old], to go forward. Before terror
suspects can be prosecuted before military tribunals, the law requires
that they be deemed "unlawful enemy combatants." But Guantanamo Bay
tribunals have simply been calling its terrorism suspects "enemy combatants,"
which led a military judge to dismiss Khadr's case in June. The judge
explained that "lawful" combatants are afforded prisoner-of-war and
other rights under international law. [Look beyond *this.*]

Terror
Suspect List Yields Few Arrests --20,000
Detentions in '06 Rile Critics--Database contained at
least 235,000 records as of last fall 25 Aug 2007 The government's
terrorist screening database flagged Americans and foreigners as suspected
terrorists almost 20,000 times last year. But only a small fraction
of those questioned were arrested or denied entry into the United States,
raising concerns among critics about privacy and the list's effectiveness...
The database consolidates a dozen government watch lists, as well as
a growing amount of information from various sources, including airline
passenger data. The government said it was planning to expand the
data-sharing to private-sector groups with a "substantial bearing
on homeland security," though officials would not be more specific.

Those
who blow whistle on contractor fraud in Iraq face US torture24
Aug 2007 For daring to report illegal arms sales, Navy veteran Donald
Vance says he was imprisoned by the American military in a security
compound outside Baghdad and subjected to harsh interrogation methods...
He had thought he was doing a good and noble thing when he started telling
the FBI about the guns and the land mines and the rocket-launchers -
all of them being sold [by Shield Group Security Co.] for cash, no receipts
necessary, he said. He told a federal agent
the buyers were Iraqi 'insurgents,' American soldiers, State
Department workers, and Iraqi embassy and ministry employees... Also
held was colleague Nathan Ertel, who helped Vance gather evidence documenting
the sales, according to a federal lawsuit both have filed in Chicago,
alleging they were illegally imprisoned and subjected to physical
and mental interrogation tactics ''reserved for terrorists and so-called
enemy combatants.''

Number
of Iraqis Held by U.S. Is Swelling24 Aug 2007 The number of
prisoners held by the American-led military occupation in Iraq has swelled
by 50 percent under the troop increase ordered by President [sic] Bush,
with the inmate population growing from 16,000 in February to 24,500
today, according to American military officers in Iraq... The American
military in Iraq will not provide numbers for prisoners held by the
government of Iraq.

Marine
may not be put on trial for role in Haditha massacre 24 Aug
2007 A hearing officer has recommended that charges be dropped against
a Marine lance corporal in connection with the killings of three Iraqi
children and three adults in their homes in Haditha in November 2005.
Lance Cpl. Stephen Tatum, 26, admitted that he killed the six civilians.
One of Tatum's fellow Marines testified at the preliminary hearing that
Tatum knew he was shooting at civilians.

Iraq
says civilians killed by U.S. fire 24 Aug 2007 U.S. helicopters
blasted rooftops in a Shiite neighborhood before dawn Friday as American
troops battled gunmen on the ground, killing at least eight by the military's
count... Iraqi police and hospital officials said the dead included
a woman and a young boy. Sixteen other people were wounded, including
four women and three boys in their early teens who had been sleeping
on the roofs to escape the summer heat, an official at Noor Hospital
in Shula said.

Bin
Laden wanted US to invade Iraq, author says By Tony Jones 24
Aug 2007 As coalition [sic] troops continue to die on Iraqi soil and
the US Government's military spending on the war bleeds into billions
of dollars, a new book says that not only could this have been avoided,
but it was all predictable, as long as you had read the Al Qaeda manual.

Report
Offers Grim View of Iraqi Leaders 24 Aug 2007 A stark assessment
released Thursday by the nation’s intelligence agencies depicts a paralyzed
Iraqi government unable to take advantage of the security 'gains' achieved
by the thousands of extra American troops dispatched to the country
this year. The assessment, known as a National
Intelligence Estimate, casts strong doubts on the viability of the
Bush administration strategy in Iraq.

The
Problem Isn't Mr. Maliki (The New York Times) 24 Aug 2007 Blaming
the prime minister of Iraq, rather than the president of the United
States, for the spectacular failure of American policy, is cynical politics,
pure and simple. It is neither fair nor helpful in figuring out how
to end America’s biggest foreign policy fiasco since Vietnam... If Mr.
Bush, whose decision to inject Vietnam into the debate over Iraq was
bizarre, took the time to study the real lessons of Vietnam, he would
not be so eager to lead America still deeper into the 21st century quagmire
he has created in Iraq.

Top
general likely to urge troop cut --Advice by the chairman
of the Joint Chiefs poses a potential clash with supporters of the buildup.
24 Aug 2007 The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is expected to
advise President [sic] Bush to reduce the U.S. force in Iraq next year
by almost half, potentially creating a rift with top White House officials
and other military commanders over the course of the war. Administration
and military officials say Marine Gen. Peter Pace is likely to convey
concerns by the Joint Chiefs that keeping well in excess of 100,000
troops in Iraq through 2008 will severely strain the military. This
assessment could collide with one being prepared by the U.S. commander
in Iraq, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, calling for the U.S. to maintain
higher troop levels for 2008 and beyond.

US
'poised to strike Iran' 25 Aug 2007 Bob Baer, the former Middle
East CIA operative... is working on a new book on Iran, but says he
was told by senior intelligence officials that he had better get it
published in the next couple of months because things could be about
to change. Baer, in an interview with The Weekend Australian, says his
contacts in the administration suggest a strategic airstrike on Iran
is a real possibility in the months ahead. "What I'm getting is a sense
that their sentiment is they are going to hit the Iranians and not just
because of Israel, but due to the fact that Iran is the predominant
power in the Gulf and it is hostile and its power is creeping into the
Gulf at every level," Baer says.

U.S.
bomb kills 3 British soldiers in Afghanistan 24 Aug 2007 Three
British soldiers were killed by a bomb dropped by U.S. aircraft supporting
them in a battle against Taliban 'insurgents' in southern Afghanistan,
the British military said on Friday. Two other soldiers were wounded
in the U.S. bombing.

'US
friendly fire' kills British soldiers in Afghanistan 24 Aug
2007 Three British soldiers have been killed in an apparent friendly
fire incident involving US aircraft in southern Afghanistan, the Ministry
of Defence said today. Two other soldiers were injured in the incident,
which occurred yesterday at 6.30pm local time (3pm BST).

U.S.
OK'd troop terror hunts in Pakistan 23 Aug 2007 Newly uncovered
"rules of engagement" show the U.S. military gave elite units broad
authority more than three years ago to pursue suspected terrorists into
Pakistan, with no mention of telling the Pakistanis in advance.

Clinton:
Terror Would Be GOP Boost
24 Aug 2007 Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday raised the prospect
of a [Bush bin Laden] terror attack before next year's 'election,' warning
that it could boost the GOP's efforts to hold on to the White House.
Discussing the possibility of a new nightmare assault while campaigning
in New Hampshire, Clinton also insisted she is the Democratic candidate
best equipped to deal with it.

FBI's
release of ferry passenger photos resented 23 Aug 2007 For Arabs
and Muslims across the Puget Sound area, a rise in the nation's threat
level or a bombing halfway around the world often can mark a period
of unease. In the years since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, leaders
in that community say incidents of profiling and harassment have ebbed
and flowed — increasing when Muslims are linked to news of the day.
Now the FBI's release of photographs of two men of unknown origin, who
the agency says were observed acting suspiciously aboard as many as
six different Washington ferry routes in recent weeks, is creating new
worries in the community.

FBI
Taps Public to ID Suspicious Ferry Riders --Passengers Reported
the Pair's Unusual Behavior Aboard Puget Sound Boats 22 Aug 2007
FBI agents in Seattle have asked the public to help identify two men
spotted behaving in an "unusual" manner during several trips on the
nation's largest ferry system. Federal officials released a pair of
photos of the men to the public Monday after they were shown to employees
of the ferry system. The two men appear to be of Middle Eastern descent
and are seen standing against the rail of a Washington State Ferries
system vessel.

FBI
seeks help identifying 2 men seen aboard ferries --'Unusual
behavior' cited, but no hint of terrorism 21 Aug 2007 The FBI is
asking the public for help in identifying two men who were seen behaving
unusually aboard several Washington state ferries. About four weeks
ago, the FBI fielded several reports from passengers and ferry workers
about the men, who seemed "overly interested in the workings and layouts
of the ferries," Special Agent Robbie Burroughs said Monday. The FBI
also publicized photos of the men, which were taken by a ferry employee,
Burroughs said. The Seattle P-I is not
publishing the photos because neither man is considered a suspect
nor has either been charged with a crime. [Update: The Seattle Times
did run a story and the photograph in its Wednesday editions.]

Satellite
Plan Draws Scrutiny 23 Aug 2007 In the first sign of opposition
to a controversial satellite-surveillance plan, House Democrats told
the Department of Homeland Security they intend to exercise close oversight
of the program, a move that could spark another confrontation between
the legislature and the executive over national security.

China
to install sensors along NAFTA highway
--Documents reveal NASCO plan to militarize I-35 18 Aug 2007
Radio sensing stations to track traffic and cargo up and down the I-35
NAFTA Superhighway corridor are being installed by China, operating
through a port operator subsidiary of Hutchison
Whampoa, in conjunction with Lockheed Martin and the North America's
SuperCorridor Coalition, Inc. The idea is that RFID chips placed in
containers where manufactured goods are shipped from China will be able
to be tracked to the Mexican ports on the Pacific where the containers
are unloaded onto Mexican trucks and trains for transportation on the
I-35 NAFTA Superhighway to destinations within the United States.

Democracy's
new dawn is on CCTV: the security state as infotainment
--So keen are America's leaders to hear dissent they're videotaping
the dissenters. Welcome to a world of total surveillance. By Naomi
Klein 24 Aug 2007 ...[T]he trade on which the economies of Canada and
Mexico depend could continue uninterrupted, as long as the governments
of those countries were willing to welcome the tentacles of the US war
on terror... In short, under the SPP vision of the continent, "thick"
borders will soon be replaced with a nearly invisible web of continental
surveillance - almost all of it run for profit. Two members of the SPP
advisory group - Lockheed Martin and General Electric - have already
received multibillion-dollar contracts from the US government to build
this web.

NYC
Taxi Drivers Threaten Sept. 5 Strike
--Taxi Workers Alliance Members May Curb Cabs In GPS-Privacy Debate
24 Aug 2007 The New York Taxi Workers Alliance -- which accounts for
more than 8,000 city drivers -- is threatening to curb their cabs on
Sept. 5 if the Taxi and Limousine Commission does not get rid of their
GPS system, which the union says invades a driver's privacy.

Telecom
Firms Helped With Government's Warrantless Wiretaps 24 Aug 2007
The Bush regime acknowledged for the first time that telecommunications
companies assisted the government's warrantless surveillance program
and were being sued as a result, an admission some legal experts say
could complicate the government's bid to halt numerous lawsuits challenging
the program's legality. "[U]nder the president's program, the terrorist
surveillance program, the private sector had assisted us," Director
of National Intelligence Mike McConnell said in an interview
with the El Paso Times published Wednesday.

Spy
chief's disclosures stun Congress --McConnell is criticized
for offering once-classified details about the wiretapping program in
an interview. 24 Aug 2007 The nation's top intelligence official
drew sharp criticism from Capitol Hill and government watchdog groups
Thursday for disclosing previously classified details about the Bush
regime's warrantless wiretapping program. In a newspaper interview
last week, Director of National Intelligence J. Michael McConnell provided
new details on the scope of the espionage program... He also disclosed
details about a previously secret decision by a special intelligence
court that ruled that the program was in violation of U.S. law. The
deliberations of the court are generally classified. The disclosures
stunned members of Congress. They were not allowed to discuss those
details publicly during an intense debate this month on legislation
sought by McConnell that granted the government significant new powers
to eavesdrop on e-mails and phone calls that pass into or through data
networks in the United States.

White
House Shell Game
(The New York Times) 24 Aug 2007 The Bush administration’s obsession
with secrecy took another absurd turn this week. The administration
is claiming that the White House Office of Administration is not covered
by the Freedom of Information Act... The fight over the Office of Administration’s
status is part of a larger battle over access to an estimated five million
e-mail messages that have mysteriously disappeared from White House
computers. The missing messages are important evidence in the scandal
over the firing of nine United States attorneys, apparently because
they refused to use their positions to help Republicans win elections.

Republican
Consultant, 2 Others Found Dead in Fla. Home 24 Aug 2007 A Republican
political consultant and two other men were found dead in a home in
an apparent double-murder and suicide, authorities and relatives said.
Authorities have not determined a motive for the deaths of Ralph Gonzalez,
39, his roommate, David Abrami, 36, and a friend, Robert Drake, 30.
Gonzalez was executive director of the Georgia Republican Party from
2001-2002. He managed U.S. Rep. Tom Feeney's 2002 campaign and was president
of Strategum Group, an Orlando-based political consulting firm that
represents Republican candidates. Abrami, an attorney, was active in
Republican politics as well.

Rumors
on Castro's Health Swirl in Miami 24 Aug 2007 The official word
in Cuba is that Fidel Castro is still very much alive - but you'd never
know that on the streets of Miami. Premature rumors of Castro's death
intensified in recent days after his 81st birthday came and went Aug.
13 with neither pictures, letters nor recordings from him. Friday, the
rumors were pushed into overdrive by a meeting of local officials to
go over their plans for when Castro really dies and a road closure in
the Florida Keys that was actually due to a police standoff.

Cuba
Foreign Minister Says Castro Health Rumors Untrue (NBC6) 24
Aug 2007 U.S. Senior officials said that while there are reports on
setbacks in Fidel Castro's health, there are no indications that his
death is imminent. Nothing unusual has been reported from Havana. However,
Miami is ablaze with rumors, NBC News reported.

Pharma-terrorists
pushing deadly vaccines on children:Parents
Receive Calls about HPV from Wake Schools 24 Aug 2007 (NC) Just
days before traditional calendar schools starts, Eyewitness News has
learned that thousands of Wake County parents received a phone call,
urging their children to get vaccinated for [with] the sexually transmitted
disease - HPV.

How
to Add Oomph to 'Organic' 19 Aug 2007 The organic industry has
gone wild in the last decade, but you wouldn’t know it at the Department
of Agriculture. Despite year after year of double-digit growth, organics
receive a pittance in financing and staff attention at the department,
which is responsible for writing regulations about organics and making
sure that they are upheld.

NJ
Teen Unlocks IPhone From AT&T Network 24 Aug 2007 A 17-year-old
hacker [George Hotz] has broken the lock that ties Apple's iPhone to
AT&T's wireless network, freeing the most hyped cell phone ever for
use on the networks of other carriers, including overseas ones.

After
Plea, Vick Is Given Suspension by the N.F.L. 25 Aug 2007 The
National Football League suspended Michael Vick indefinitely without
pay yesterday after he admitted in court papers that he paid for dogfighting
bets and helped kill underperforming dogs.

1,000
displaced by storms in Midwest 24 Aug 2007 A fresh round of
thunderstorms battered parts of the Midwest for a fifth day Thursday
as the region battled deadly floods that drove more than 1,000 people
from their homes... Chicago's O'Hare International Airport was closed
for a time after its control tower was evacuated when tornado warnings
were issued.

*****

Powerhouse
GOP firm working to undermine Iraqi PM
23 Aug 2007 A powerhouse Republican lobbying firm with close ties to
the White House has begun a public campaign to undermine the government
of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, CNN has confirmed. A senior
Bush administration official told CNN the White House is aware of the
lobbying campaign by Barbour
Griffith & Rogers because the firm is "blasting e-mails all over
town" criticizing al-Maliki and promoting the firm's client, former
interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, as an alternative to al-Maliki.
['Iraq's'
oil law not passed yet; another Bush coup is surely on the way.]

'What
they did was very well planned.'Militias
Seizing Control of Iraqi Electricity Grid 23 Aug 2007 Armed
groups increasingly control the antiquated switching stations that channel
electricity around Iraq, the electricity minister said Wednesday...
This kind of manipulation can cause the entire system to collapse and
bring nationwide blackouts, sometimes seriously damaging the generating
plants that the United States has paid millions
of dollars to repair.[Bush's
paid 'insurgents' are getting the job done for KBR and Blackwater USA.
They can 'rebuild' and 'secure' the electrical grid that the US destroyed
in the first place. See: U.S.
puts former insurgents on payroll at Iraq front line 22 Aug
2007.]

Private
Security Contractor behavior in Iraq is detrimental and unacceptable
By Marshall Adame 22 Aug 2007 If you were Iraqi; what would you do?
Really…… What would you do? ...If you were an Iraqi, and you could see
what they see, I am wondering what you would be thinking about the Occupation
by American Forces. The Iraqi population makes no distinction between
"Private" mercenaries and U.S. Forces. To the Average Iraqi,
they are the same. The numbers I have been told are about 170,000 U.S.
Military personnel in Iraq. There are also about 160,000 Private security
contractors in Iraq either directly or indirectly on the U.S. Government
payroll. American taxpayers are bankrolling 160,000 of the greatest
recruiting tools for the Iraqi insurgencies.

Sen.
Warner: Iraq pullout should start in weeks
23 Aug 2007 The influential former chairman of the Senate Armed Services
Committee has called on President [sic] Bush to start the process of
bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq in September. Sen. John Warner,
a Virginia Republican, on Thursday recommended that Bush announce the
beginning of a U.S. withdrawal in mid-September, after a report is released
from the top U.S. officials in Iraq, and that those troops should be
back in the United States by Christmas.

Bush
ally breaks ranks with call for troop pullout 24 Aug 2007 President
[sic] Bush appears to have lost one of his most crucial Republican allies
on Iraq and perhaps the party’s most influential voice on the war when
Senator John Warner last night demanded the start of a troop withdrawal
from Iraq by Christmas. Mr Warner, a former Secretary of the Navy and
a respected military voice on Capitol Hill, took Washington by surprise
when he asked Mr Bush to announce the start of the pullout on September
15.

Bush
steps up sales push to sustain his surge in Iraq 23 Aug 2007
President [sic] Bush stepped up his high-pressure sales job Wednesday
to stay the course in Iraq, illustrating how the administration is both
shifting the goalposts it once set for measuring success there and changing
the political dynamic inside Congress on what to do about it.

Bush
told he has drawn wrong lesson
24 Aug 2007 For more than four years the US President [sic], George
Bush, has aggressively resisted comparisons between the fighting in
Iraq and the Vietnam War, with its unsavoury connotations of quagmire,
failure and defeat. Now, in urging Americans to stay the course in Iraq,
Mr Bush is challenging that historic memory. His landmark speech on
Wednesday marked a dramatic about-face, just weeks before Congress is
to hear a critical update on the Iraq war.

War
analogy strikes nerve in Vietnam 23 Aug 2007 President [sic]
Bush touched a nerve among Vietnamese when he invoked the Vietnam War
in a speech warning that death and chaos will envelop Iraq if U.S. troops
leave too quickly. People in Vietnam, where opposition to the U.S.-led
invasion of Iraq is strong, said Thursday that Bush drew the wrong conclusions
from the long, bloody Southeast Asian conflict. "Doesn't he realize
that if the U.S. had stayed in Vietnam longer, they would have killed
more people?" said Vu Huy Trieu of Hanoi, a veteran of the communist
forces that fought American troops in Vietnam. "Nobody regrets that
the Vietnam War wasn't prolonged except Bush."

Arab
media condemn Bush flip-flop on Iraq prime minister 23 Aug 2007
U.S. President [sic] George W. Bush's conflicting remarks on the effectiveness
of the Iraqi government prompted comments in the Arab media which described
them as yet another sign of the failure of U.S. policies in the war
torn country. Bush on Wednesday said he supported Iraqi Prime Minister
Nouri al-Maliki, calling him a "good guy, good man" — after having expressed
frustration with the lack of political progress in the country just
the day before.

Iraq:
The vanishing coalition --President Bush invokes Vietnam
as splits emerge with Iraq allies 23 Aug 2007 President [sic] George
Bush invoked the spectre of Vietnam for the first time yesterday as
15 more American soldiers died and increasing evidence emerged that
the coalition of the willing [bribed] that invaded Iraq four years ago
has begun to fracture irreparably.

Army
secretary rejects longer Iraq tours 23 Aug 2007 The Army's top
civilian leader said Thursday he sees "no possibility" of extending
soldiers' 15-month Iraq tours, reflecting concern about mounting strains
on soldiers and their families as well as an emerging expectation that
the troop buildup in Iraq can be reversed next year. In an Associated
Press interview, Army Secretary Pete Geren said that regardless of near-term
changes in Iraq, the Army must find new ways to adjust to the pressures
of engaging in a global war against [for] extremism, which he described
as a "persistent conflict" that could last two decades.

US
general warns of bloody Ramadan attacks in Iraq
23 Aug 2007 A senior US general [Brigadier General Richard Sherlock]
warned Thursday of "sensational" attacks during the upcoming Ramadan
period in Iraq directed at swaying perceptions of a key upcoming US
report on progress in the war there.

Twenty-five
Iraqis killed in attack near Baquba 23 Aug 2007 Twenty-five
people were killed and 20 wounded in an attack by gunmen on two villages
near Baquba city some 60 km northeast of the Iraqi capital, independent
Voices of Iraq news agency reported citing a police source. The predominately
Sunni Sheikh Tamim and Ibrahim Yahia villages near Baquba were bombarded
on Thursday by [US] mortar shells, Baquba police chief Ali Dliyan told
Voices of Iraq.

Two
more Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan 23 Aug 2007 Two
soldiers from Quebec and their Afghan interpreter were killed Wednesday,
and two Radio-Canada television journalists injured, when the light-
armoured vehicle in which they were travelling hit a roadside bomb.

Russia
unveils pilotless 'stealth' bomber 24 Aug 2007 Russia unveiled
on Thursday the mock-up of a pilotless bomber plane that its constructors
say will be even better than the famous US stealth fighter at evading
enemy radars and anti-aircraft fire.

Army
gets new 'enhanced blast' weapon to fight Taliban 23 Aug 2007
British soldiers in Afghanistan are being supplied with a new "super
weapon" to attack Taliban fighters more effectively, defence officials
said yesterday. The "enhanced blast" weapon is based on thermobaric
technology used in the powerful bombs dropped by the Russians on Grozny,
the Chechen capital, and in US "bunker busters".

Court
orders soldier to pay for death 24 Aug 2007 A civilian court
has sparked controversy in Israel by ordering an army officer [Lieutenant
Tzvi Koretzki] to personally pay compensation to the family of a Palestinian
boy he shot dead in the West Bank, the first such award against an individual
soldier.

Caracas
to subsidise London fuel 23 Aug 2007 Venezuela's president,
Hugo Chavez, has struck a discounted fuel deal with London mayor Ken
Livingstone in exchange for expertise on tourism and public transport
in Caracas. The move will give up to a million Londoners living on benefits
half-price fares on the city's buses...

Khadr's
terrorism case headed back to court 23 Aug 2007 U.S. military
lawyers will be in court Friday arguing whether Omar Khadr's terrorism
trial can move forward as criticism grows in Canada about the legal
process for Guantanamo Bay detainees. The U.S. government is appealing
a ruling by a military judge who threw out Khadr's murder case in April,
saying he hadn't been declared an "unlawful" enemy combatant with no
right to fight in Afghanistan in 2002.

Spy
chief reveals classified surveillance details --McConnell
confirms AT&T, Verizon, others help government with wiretaps 22
Aug 2007 National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell pulled the curtain
back on previously classified details of government surveillance and
of a secretive court whose recent rulings created new hurdles for the
Bush regime as it tries to prevent [foment] terrorism. McConnell’s comments
were made in an interview with the El Paso Times last week and posted
as a transcript
on the newspaper’s web site Wednesday.

Transcript:
Debate on the foreign intelligence surveillance act By Chris
Roberts 22 Aug 2007 The following is the transcript of a question and
answer session with National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell. Q:
How many calls? Thousands? A: Don't want to go there. Just think,
lots. Too many. Now the second part of the issue was under the president's
program, the terrorist surveillance program, the private sector had
assisted us. Because if you're going to get access you've got to
have a partner and they were being sued. Now if you play out the suits
at the value they're claimed, it would bankrupt these companies. So
my position was we have to provide liability protection to these private
sector entities. So that was part of the request. So we went through
that and we argued it. Some wanted to limit us to terrorism. My argument
was, wait a minute, why would I want to limit it to terrorism.

Copious
cameras troubling to ACLU --Report urges cities to halt surveillance
20 Aug 2007 Cities in the county and across the state are using surveillance
cameras to record people's activities with almost no public debate and
few adopted policies outlining how the data will be used, an American
Civil Liberties Union analysis concludes. More worrisome, the report's
authors say, is the possibility that government monitors may integrate
facial-recognition and other technologies to develop databases that
track individual behaviors.

Pentagon
to Close Disputed Database 22 Aug 2007 The Pentagon said Tuesday
that it would shut down a database that had been criticized for including
information on antiwar protesters and others whose actions posed no
threat to military facilities and personnel. A Pentagon spokesman, Col.
Gary Keck of the Army, said the database was being shut down Sept. 17
because "the analytical value had declined," but not because
of public criticism.

FBI
Provides Arrest Records of Peace Activists to Immigration of Other Countries--
Be Ready to Be Detained By US Army Reserves Colonel and former
US Diplomat, Ann Wright Post by Chip 23 Aug 2007 The immigration officer
shook his head and then escorted me to a secondary screening area where
another officer typed my name into a computer that accessed the US National
Criminal Information Center’s (NCIC) computerized data that contains
the criminal records of US citizens... The officer said, "There
are six arrests on your record." She then said that Canada had
no category called misdemeanors--anything on NCIC was considered by
the Canadian Immigration as criminal actions, deportable offenses.

Runners
Charged With Felony for Dropping Flour to Mark Trail in 'Strategic Sport'
23 Aug 2007 New Haven police have charged two people they believe are
responsible for spreading a white powder around the parking lot of the
IKEA store and Bank of America in the city's Long Wharf area. The suspects,
Daniel Salchow of New Haven and his sister, Dorothee Salchow of Hamburg,
Germany, were arrested and charged with breach of peace in the first
degree, a class D felony. Earlier Thursday, the New Haven Fire Department,
New Haven Police Department, State Police, FBI, New Haven Health Department
and others responded to a call about a white powder in the parking lot
of IKEA. The substance turned out to be flour.

IKEA
Evacuated; Suspicious Substance Found At Store, Bank 23 Aug
2007 (CT) A suspicious substance was found at IKEA and the Bank of America
in New Haven Thursday. IKEA was evacuated after police said a substance
was distributed in different places in front of the building and around
the parking lot. Hazardous Materials crews are on the scene trying to
determine whether the powder is dangerous.

Judge
to Decide on Cop's Sense of Smell 22 Aug 2007 (Lincoln, NE)
A judge will have to decide again whether a police officer can smell
alcohol on a man's breath from inside of a fast-food drive-through window.
The prosecution believes Officer Kenneth Marrow can and did earlier
this year. The attorney for Cody Schaaf disagrees and says the officer
had no reasonable cause to stop Schaaf on suspicion of drunken driving.

Bush
Administration Set to Expand Mountaintop Coal Mining
23 Aug 2007 The Bush regime is set to issue a regulation on Friday that
would enshrine the coal mining practice of mountaintop removal. The
technique involves blasting off the tops of
mountains and dumping the rubble into valleys and streams.
The regulation is the culmination of six and a half years of work by
the administration to make it easier for mining companies to dig more
coal. [Bush should climb to the top of the mountain, before the mining
begins. --LRP]

The
Bush Administration's New Target: Uninsured Kids --Fighting
against SCHIP is Bush's first salvo in the battle for major health care
reform By Art Levine 31 Jul 2007 The first battle in the war over
universal health care has begun, with the Bush administration and its
right-wing allies targeting bipartisan legislation to expand and reauthorize
the under-funded State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).
They’re doing so with a slick campaign comprised of lies,
distortions and sloganeering that derides the proposed bills as
paving the way for socialized medicine.

Alert:
USDA Says Foods Labeled as 'Raw' Can Be Pasteurized (Organic
Consumers Association) 23 Aug 2007 Under pressure
from industrial agriculture lobbyists, the USDA has quietly
approved a new regulation that will effectively end distribution of
raw almonds, while putting many family farmers out of business. The
regulation is scheduled to go into effect in just a few short days on
September 1st, unless thousands of consumers take action now... One
of the FDA-recommended pasteurization methods requires the use of propylene
oxide, which is classified as a "possible human carcinogen" by the
International Agency for Research on Cancer and is banned in Canada,
Mexico, and the European Union.

Court
Rebukes Bush Administration on Global Warming --Groups Say
Administration Suppressed Climate Change Findings 21 Aug 2007 A
federal court today issued a harsh rebuke of the Bush regime for its
failure to issue long-delayed reports assessing the impacts and consequences
of global warming in the United States. The judge in the case set a
spring deadline for administration officials to comply.

Saint
Louis Zoo settles with USDA over 2 polar bear deaths, agrees to pay
$7,500 fine 22 Aug 2007 The Saint Louis Zoo has agreed to pay
a $7,500 (€5,600) fine to the U.S. Department of Agriculture over the
deaths of two polar bears. The department said in documents filed earlier
this month that the zoo's violations of federal laws resulted
in the deaths of Penny, a 20-year-old female polar bear, and Churchill,
an 17-year-old male, in May and June of 2005. Churchill had trash bags
and rags in his digestive tract, and Penny died with two dead fetuses
in her uterus. [Feel free to share your thoughts with the 'people'
running the Saint Louis Zoo: Janet Powell or Christy Childs: PR@stlzoo.org
(314) 781-0900, ext. 233 or 239. Toll-free:
(800) 966-8877.Also,
marketing@stlzoo.org. Saint
Louis Zoo, One Government Drive, St. Louis, MO 63110]

Health
Officials Warn of Rabid Bats In City --Rogers Park Family Bitten
By Rabid Bat In Apartment 22 Aug 2007 Rabid bats would not seem likely
to turn up as a serious threat in a big city like Chicago. But the health
department is warning that bats that carry rabies were actually found
in the city. This month alone, seven rabid bats were found.

*****

"People
say: 'But you're paying the enemy'."U.S.
puts former insurgents on payroll at Iraq front line
22 Aug 2007 Under a tree by a battlefield road in Iraq's "Triangle of
Death", Lieutenant- Colonel Robert Balcavage meets his new recruits.
The men are Iraqi Sunni Arabs who are about to join the U.S. military's
payroll as a local militia. They want guns... Slowly but deliberately,
U.S. forces are enlisting groups of armed men -- many probably former
insurgents -- and paying cash, a strategy they say has dramatically
reduced violence in some of Iraq's most dangerous areas in just weeks.

Book:
Wanted Criminal Flew U.S. Supply Missions in Iraq 21 Aug 2007
The U.S. government paid a wanted international criminal roughly
$60 million to fly supplies into Iraq in support of the war effort,
a new book alleges. Intelligence officials have considered arms merchant
and international trafficker Viktor Bout one of the greatest threats
to U.S. interests, in the same league as al Qaeda [al-CIAduh] kingpin
Osama bin Laden. Interpol has issued a warrant for his arrest; the
United Nations Security Council has restricted his travel. Yet from
2003 through at least 2005, Pentagon contractors used air cargo companies
known to be connected to Bout to fly an estimated 1,000 supply trips
into and out of Iraq, according to "Merchant
of Death: Money, Guns, Plans, and the Man Who Makes War Possible."

Western
oil group eyes assets in Iraq 22 Aug 2007 A large western oil
company has offered $700m for oil assets in Iraqi Kurdistan owned by
DNO, the small Norwegian oil company. The offer signals that international
oil companies are willing to put significant amounts of money into Iraq
in spite of the security problems and lack of a legal framework.
DNO refused to name the company, but industry executives speculated
that Royal Dutch Shell was a possible bidder.

Iraqi,
Syrian oil ministers agree to reopen key pipeline 22 Aug 2007
Iraqi and Syrian oil ministers agreed on Wednesday to repair and subsequently
reopen a key pipeline between their two countries that connects Iraq's
oil-rich Kirkuk region and a Syrian port. Currently, Iraq exports nearly
all its oil [?!?] through the Persian Gulf... The pipeline to
Baniyas was built in the 1950s but was bombed by U.S. forces during
the 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

Bush
invokes 'tragedy of Vietnam' against Iraq pullout 22 Aug 2007
President [sic] Bush drew parallels between the aftermath of the Vietnam
War and the potential costs of pulling out of Iraq in a speech Wednesday.
"Three decades later, there is a legitimate debate about how we got
into the Vietnam War and how we left," Bush told members of the Veterans
of Foreign Wars, at their convention in Kansas City, Missouri.

Bush
to cite Vietnam in defense of Iraq --The pResident plans
to argue in a speech to veterans today that a U.S. withdrawal had dire
results in Asia. 22 Aug 2007 Critics of the war in Iraq who compare
the conflict to Vietnam have the analogy backward, President [sic] Bush
plans to tell veterans in a speech today.

Iraqi
PM Lashes Out at U.S. Critics 22 Aug 2007 Iraq's prime minister
lashed out Wednesday at U.S. criticism, saying no one has the right
to impose timetables on his elected government and that his country
"can find friends elsewhere." Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki
blamed the U.S. presidential campaign for the recent tough words about
his government - from President [sic] Bush and from other U.S. politicians.

Bush
insists he supports "good man" Maliki 22 Aug 2007 A day after
expressing frustration with the Iraqi leadership, U.S. President [sic]
George W. Bush said on Wednesday he supported Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki
as "a good man with a difficult job."

US
general questions British tactics in Iraq 22 Aug 2007 The UK's
"disengagement" from southern Iraq is worsening the security situation
and fuelling frustration among American commanders, a US general said
today. In the latest example of US criticism of British commitment,
General Jack Keane said the UK had never had enough troops in southern
Iraq to "truly protect" civilians, who were increasingly threatened
by "gangland warfare".

U.S.
Army running out of troops
20 Aug 2007 Sapped by nearly six years of war, the Army has nearly exhausted
its fighting force and its options if the Bush administration decides
to extend the Iraq buildup beyond next spring.

Tehran
gets ready for potential US strikes
21 Aug 2007 ...[H]igh-ranking sources stated that the Iranian leadership
is taking US threats to strike its nuclear sites very seriously. Furthermore,
the sources highlighted that the Iranian leadership had recently increased
its military formations including the Revolutionary Guards and the regular
army forces. The sources also noted that Iran was currently weighing
three options to respond to any potential US military strikes and that
the three options included targets within the Gulf region.

Prelude
to an Attack on Iran 18 Aug 2007 By Robert Baer Strengthening
the Administration's case for a strike on Iran, there's a belief among
neo-cons that the IRGC is the one obstacle to a democratic and friendly
Iran. They believe that if we were to get rid of the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps], the clerics would fall, and our thirty-years war with
Iran over. It's another neo-con delusion, but still it informs White
House thinking. And what do we do if just the opposite happens — a strike
on Iran unifies Iranians behind the regime? An Administration official
told me it's not even a consideration. "IRGC
IED's are a casus belli for this Administration. There will be an attack
on Iran."

Bolton:
I 'Absolutely' Hope The U.S. Will Attack Iran In The Next 'Six Months'
By Amanda 22 Aug 2007 Yesterday, Raw Story pointed
out that former CIA operative Bob Baer told Fox News that the Bush
administration will likely attack Iran in the coming months. "Iran
policy is on close hold, but the feeling is we will hit the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard corps sometime next six months or so," said
Baer. Today,
former U.N. ambassador John Bolton appeared on Fox News and responded.
He said that while he couldn’t confirm Baer’s statements, he "absolutely"
hoped they were true.

FOX
Attacks: Iran Film by Robert Greenwald 09 Jun 2007 Sign the
Open Letter --Tell the networks not to follow FOX [Faux] down the road
to war.

A
provocative action against Iran By Manal Alafrangi 22 Aug 2007
On August 19, 1953, the US government along with the UK government supported
a coup d'etat that removed the democratically elected Iranian prime
minister Mohammad Mossadeq from power. He was replaced by Mohammad Reza
Pahlavi of the Pahlavi dynasty in an attempt to preserve Western control
of Iran's oil infrastructure. Fifty-four years later, it seems the US
is still intent on interfering in Iranian matters. And it is doing it
with zero calculation and 100 per cent thoughtlessness. This was the
case most recently when the US announced that it was naming Iran's Revolutionary
Guards Corps (IRGC) "a specially designated global terrorist"...Apart
from the fact that such branding is unprecedented - since a state body
and an army of a sovereign nation has never been dubbed "terrorist"-
the recent move by the US paints an alarming future for US-Iranian relations.

Pro-war
group launches $15 million ad blitz
By Mike Allen 22 Aug 2007 A new group, Freedom’s Watch, is launching
Wednesday with a $15 million, five-week campaign of TV, radio and Web
ads featuring military veterans that is aimed at retaining support in
Congress for President [sic] Bush’s "surge" policy on Iraq.
"For those who believe in peace through strength, the cavalry is coming,"
said former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, who is a founding
board member of the group.

Israel
Bans School Supplies to Gaza 21 Aug 2007 (Prensa Latina) The
Israeli government forbade the entrance of paper for making text books
to children from Gaza Strip, denounced Palestinian-Israeli Information-Investigation
Center (CIIPI). The Israeli Defense Ministry is considering if the load
is part of the humanitarian aid material that should enter Gaza Strip,
blockaded since June 14 when it was taken by the Islamic Resistance
Movement.

US
launches 'MySpace for spies' 21 Aug 2007 Spies and teenagers
normally have little in common but that is about to change as America's
intelligence agencies prepare to launch "A-Space", an internal
communications tool modelled on the popular social networking sites,
Facebook and MySpace.

Chicken
farms as terror threats? 22 Aug 2007 Are chicken coops the next
battleground in the war on [of] terror? Poultry growers are protesting
proposed regulations from the Department of Homeland Security that would
label propane gas a "chemical of interest" and require anybody with
7,500 pounds or more of the fuel to register with the agency.

Chandler
school suspends boy for sketching gun 22 Aug 2007 Chandler school
officials have suspended a 13-year-old boy for sketching a picture that
resembled a gun, saying it posed a threat to classmates. But parents
of the Payne Junior High School student said the drawing was a harmless
doodle of a fake laser, and school officials overreacted.

Pupils
face tracking bugs in school blazers 21 Aug 2007 A school uniform
maker said yesterday it was "seriously considering" adding tracking
devices to its clothes after a survey found many parents would be interested
in knowing where their offspring were. Trutex would not say whether
it was studying a spy in the waistband or a bug in the blazer but admitted
teenagers were less keen than younger children on the "big brother"
idea.

Bush
denies superstate rumors 22 Aug 2007 President [sic] Bush and
the leaders of Canada and Mexico yesterday ridiculed the notion that
their countries are conspiring to create a regional supergovernment
similar to the European Union.

Gov't
Argues for Withholding Records 22 Aug 2007 Opening a new front
in the Bush administration's battle to keep its records confidential,
the inJustice Department is contending
that the White House Office of Administration is not subject to the
Freedom of Information Act. The department's argument is in response
to a lawsuit trying to force the office to reveal what it knows about
the disappearance of White House e-mails.

Embattled
Bush Official Resigns Justice Post 22 Aug 2007
Facing multiple investigations, a senior Justice Department
appointee has resigned his post. Bradley Schlozman stepped down from
his position as a counsel in the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys,
a branch of the Department of Justice, last week, a Justice spokesman
confirmed Wednesday. Schlozman, a key figure in several political controversies,
is under investigation by the department's inspector general and Office
of Professional Responsibility for allegations he was involved in politicizing
hiring and firing decisions at the Justice Department. He is also a
subject of the congressional probe into the U.S. attorneys firing scandal.

Attorney
In Rove Article Fired, Sues--Former Texas State Attorney
Says She Was Dismissed For Comments Regarding Rove's Legal Voting Status
21 Aug 2007 A former attorney for the Texas Secretary of State has
filed a lawsuit claiming she was fired for political reasons after she
spoke to a newspaper [the Washington Post] about presidential adviser
Karl Rove, according to a media report. Elizabeth Reyes, who was dismissed
in September 2005, filed the lawsuit in state district court.

Foley,
police at odds over computers 22 Aug 2007 Florida's top police
agency said Wednesday its investigation into former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley's
lurid Internet communications with teenage boys has been hindered because
neither Foley nor the House will let investigators examine his congressional
computers.

State
contends e-voting machines weren't certified 21 Aug 2007 Election
Systems & Software Inc. (ES&S) sold nearly 1,000 electronic-'voting'
machines that were not certified to five California counties in 2006,
California Secretary of State Debra Bowen said Tuesday. "Given that
each machine costs about $5,000, it appears ES&S has taken $5 million
out of the pockets of several California counties," Bowen said in a
statement.

E-voting
predicament: Not-so-secret ballots By Declan McCullagh 20 Aug
2007 Open-records laws in Ohio mean anyone can follow the machines'
paper trail to see who voted for which candidates. Ohio's method of
conducting elections with electronic voting machines appears to have
created a true privacy nightmare for state residents: revealing who
voted for which candidates. Two Ohio activists have discovered that
e-voting machines made by Election
Systems and Software and used across the country produce time-stamped
paper trails that permit the reconstruction of an election's results--including
allowing voter names to be matched to their actual votes.

'It
is actually a power grab on behalf of Republicans.'Stacking
the Electoral Deck
(The New York Times) 22 Aug 2007 The Electoral College should be abolished,
but there is a right way to do it and a wrong way. A prominent Republican
lawyer in California is doing it the wrong way, promoting a sneaky initiative
that, in the name of Electoral College reform, would rig
elections in a way that would make it difficult for a Democrat
to be elected president, no matter how the popular vote comes out. If
the initiative passes, it would do serious damage to American democracy.

Judge
rules Euclid racially biased --A Federal judge has ruled
that Euclid's system of electing city council members is biased.
21 Aug 2007 U.S. District Judge Kathleen O'Malley presided over
a two week trial in which the Justice Department accused Euclid of preventing
blacks from being elected. No black has ever won a city council
seat or election to the Euclid School Board, despite the city's more
than 30 percent African American population.

Thompson
Faces Election Complaint 21 Aug 2007 A liberal blogger has filed
a federal complaint against former Sen. Fred Thompson, the actor and
unannounced Republican candidate for president, accusing him of violating
election laws as he ponders his entry into the race. The blogger, Lane
Hudson, submitted his complaint to the Federal Election Commission on
Monday saying Thompson has raised far more money than he needs to explore
whether to run for president.

Report:
Hastert to resign, not retire By Josh Kraushaar 22 Aug 2007
According to the Evans-Novak Political Report, former House Speaker
Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) will be resigning from Congress in November,
instead of retiring at the end of his term.

Say
it ain't so: Is Jenna Bush's engagement of the shotgun variety?
By Shane Dingman 20 Aug 2007 It sounded like a fairy tale, Jenna Bush
engaged! ...Here have an array of pictures from 2004-2007... They are
all quite similar to the Wonkette montage, particularly in the shapelessness,
the belly clutching and slouching... Still, nothing could cap this summer
silly season like a pre-marital-sex-pregnancy-marriage scandal unfolding
in the White House Rose Garden. So, in that spirit we will inaugurate
Bump Watch to keep you appraised of the waistline of the first
daughter.

FAA
Chief to Become Aerospace Lobbyist 22 Aug 2007 The nation's
chief defense-industry lobbying group has selected Marion C. Blakey,
administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, as its new chief
executive. Industry officials confirmed yesterday that Blakey will head
the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), replacing John W. Douglass,
66, who is retiring.

Connect
the Dots: Karl Rove's Politics Über Alles Strategy and the Utah Mine
Disaster By Arianna Huffington 21 Aug 2007 Coal mining interests
have donated more than $12 million to federal candidates since the Bush-era
began with the 2000 election cycle, with 88% of that money -- $10.6
million -- going
to Republicans... Exhibit A is Bush's "mine safety" czar, Richard
Stickler, whose agency both approved
the controversial mining technique used at the Crandall Canyon Mine
before the collapse, and oversaw the rescue operation. Stickler is a
former coal company manager with such a lousy safety record at the companies
he'd run that his nomination as head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration
was twice
rejected by Senators from both parties, forcing Bush to sneak him
in the back door with a recess appointment.

Bank
of America to invest $2 bln In Countrywide: WSJ 22 Aug 2007
Bank of America Corp. is making a $2 billion equity investment in Countrywide
Financial Corp. the Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site late
Wednesday, citing people familiar with the situation.

China
Airlines paints over name, logo on crashed plane 22 Aug 2007
China Airlines on Tuesday night painted over the company's name on the
left side of the aircraft and the flower symbol that was on the tail
fin at the accident site at Naha airport, TV media reported Wednesday.

Feds
Fine Saint Louis Zoo Over Polar Bear Deaths --USDA Action
Comes in the Wake of PETA's Complaint 21 Aug 2007 PETA has learned
that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has ordered the Saint
Louis Zoo to pay a $7,500 fine to settle charges that it violated the
federal Animal Welfare Act. The charges include failure to provide adequate
veterinary care to two polar bears, one of whom was gravely ill; failure
to remove hazardous materials from a bear's enclosure; and causing a
polar bear trauma, harm, and behavioral stress. The fine was assessed
following a USDA investigation into the deaths of two polar bears, Penny
and Churchill, who died within five weeks of each other at the zoo.

*****

George
Bush hints Iraqi PM must go[OMG! Bush was installed in two GOP coup d'etats and then he installed
Maliki. For the sake of the planet, *Bush* is the one who needs to go.]
22 Aug 2007 President [sic] George W Bush yesterday signalled that his
patience with the Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki had run out,
suggesting that he should be voted from office before the country's
security deteriorates further [so that Exxon Mobil can ram the oil
law through parliament].

Small
oil firms in Iraq becoming buyout targets --Canadian firm
WesternZagros up for grabs 21 Aug 2007 When Iraq approves a new
[Washington-backed] oil law, the smaller firms that took the risk to
start up early despite insecurity and the lack of a legal framework
will become buyout targets and are already being sized up by larger
competitors.

Suicide
Bombings - A Favourite US Counter-Insurgency Tactic
By Aeneas 20 Aug 2007 Since 9-11 reports of "suicide bombings" have
increased exponentially in the news... We have been brainwashed into
believing that the insurgents in Iraq are such brutal, uncivilized,
fanatical crazy extremists that they will anything to fight 'freedom'
- even kill their own people. Looking at this from a historical perspective,
precedence for the type of bombings in Iraq that are attributed to the
insurgency or "al-Qaeda" is virtually non existent... After 9-11, suddenly
this bizarre phenomenon of an insurgency using suicide bombings against
their own people rather than the invaders appears, as if to provide
supporting evidence for the reality of the crazed "suicide bombing"
hijackers that attacked America - or so the official story goes. Could
the answer be as simple as that what is being touted as suicide bombings
are in fact the work of US/British/Israeli counterinsurgency teams?
In Iraq, are we in fact dealing with the what are better know as "false
flag operations"?

US
military denies troops fired on Iraq protest 21 Aug 2007 The
U.S. military denied on Tuesday that one of its convoys opened fire
on demonstrators who had blocked a main road near Baghdad, after residents
and police said the unit had wounded up to 18 people. U.S. military
spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Michael Donnelly confirmed protesters had
stopped a convoy in the town of Khalis, 80 km (50 miles) north of Baghdad
on the main road linking the capital to the northern city of Kirkuk.

Lawyers
accuse MoD of retaining evidence on abused Iraqi detainees --Legal
team wants data on death of Baha Mousa --High court urged to
force army to reveal documents 22 Aug 2007 Lawyers representing
the families of Iraqis detained by British soldiers yesterday accused
the Ministry of Defence of suppressing crucial information about the
circumstances surrounding their mistreatment, including advice given
to senior army officers. They have asked the high court to issue a new
order requiring the MoD to disclose all relevant documents about the
death of Baha Mousa, a Basra hotel receptionist who suffered 93 injuries
and died while in British custody in 2003, and the abuse of 10 other
Iraqi civilians.

Army
chiefs deny al-Sadr's claim of victory in Iraq
21 Aug 2007 The British military yesterday denied claims by Muqtada
al-Sadr that UK troops were retreating from Iraq in defeat, and accused
the radical Shia cleric and his followers of trying to "create the false
impression that they were driving us out". In an interview with The
Independent, Sadr said: "The British have given up and know they will
be leaving Iraq soon. They are retreating because of the resistance
they have faced. Without that they would have stayed for much longer,
there is no doubt."

Female
troop deaths in Iraq on pace to top record
21 Aug 2007 A U.S. soldier killed in Baghdad last week marked the fourth
death of an American female service member this month, a toll that hasn't
been topped since June 2005. Eighty-two service women have died since
the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to the Pentagon.

Clinton
says Bush's new strategy is working 21 Aug 2007 New military
tactics in Iraq are working but the best way to honor U.S. soldiers
is "by beginning to bring them home," Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton told
war veterans Monday. Clinton, seeking the Democratic nomination for
president, praised the work that soldiers have done in Iraq but described
the government there as "on vacation," leaving American troops in the
middle of a sectarian war.

Pressure
on for riskier role in Iraq
22 Aug 2007 An incoming Democratic president of the US would look to
Australia to keep its troops in Iraq as long as possible, for up to
a further three years, say advisers to the leading candidates, Hillary
Clinton and Barack Obama. A Democratic administration would also welcome
Australian military help in training Iraqi troops in riskier deployments
than their current duties, says Michele Flournoy, who was a defence
strategist in Bill Clinton's administration and has advised the Democratic
front-runner Senator Hillary Clinton.

Al-Jazeera
cameraman in worse condition at Gitmo, lawyer says 21 Aug 2007
The health of a hunger-striking TV cameraman [Sami al-Hajj] at the military
prison in Guantanamo Bay has deteriorated sharply in recent months,
according to notes released Tuesday by his lawyer [Clive Stafford Smith]
after they were censored by U.S. authorities.

Rising
powers have the US in their sights By Dilip Hiro 22 Aug 2007
With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States stood
tall - militarily invincible, economically unrivaled, diplomatically
uncontestable. And the dominating force on information channels worldwide.
The next century was to be the true "American century", with the rest
of the world molding itself in the image of the sole superpower. Yet
with not even a decade of this century behind us, we are already witnessing
the rise of a multipolar world in which new powers are challenging different
aspects of US supremacy - Russia and China in the forefront, with regional
powers Venezuela and Iran forming the second rank. These emergent powers
are primed to erode US hegemony, not confront it, singly or jointly.

Army
Reprimands In Tillman Case Mild 10 Aug 2007 Official reprimands
issued to three high-ranking Army officers are only mildly critical
of their mistakes after the friendly fire death of Pat Tillman and at
times praise the officers. The Army also said it would not include the
reprimands in the officers' military records, according to documents
reviewed by The Associated Press.

Britain
Denies U19 Palestinians into the UK
(Palestine Solidarity Campaign) 13 Aug 2007 Many organisations spent
weeks and months planning to host the Palestinian Under 19 football
team in a 3 week visit to the UK in September. This visit is no longer
going to take place as the British Consulate in Jerusalem has refused
to grant visas to the entire team and coaches.

Pushing
in Ann Arbor for boycott of Israel 18 Aug 2007 (MI) The People’s
Food Co-op is no longer just a grocery store. It is now where a historic
vote will take place to boycott all Israeli products. Horrified by the
Israeli army’s destruction of Palestine and Lebanon, nearly 1,000 Ann
Arbor residents petitioned the local grocery store to boycott Israel.
The voting will take place inside the store, starting September 1.

At
North American summit, Bush stands firm on passports 21 Aug
2007 President [sic] Bush stood firm yesterday on an issue causing friction
with Mexico and Canada, refusing to back away from plans to demand passports
from everyone entering the United States across its land borders beginning
in 2008.

Judge:
Bush Official Faces Contempt --Bush Official Faces Contempt,
Could Go to Jail Until Forest Service Complies With Court Order 21
Aug 2007 A federal judge in Montana has ordered the Bush regime's top
forestry official [Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey] to explain why
he should not be held in contempt of court for the U.S. Forest Service's
failure to analyze the environmental impact of dropping fish-killing
fire retardant on wildfires.

Cheney's
Office Says It Has Wiretap Documents 21 Aug 2007 Vice President
[sic] Cheney's office acknowledged for the first time yesterday that
it has dozens of documents related to the administration's warrantless
surveillance program, but it signaled that it will resist efforts by
congressional Democrats to obtain them.

CIA
criticizes former chief over terror readiness 21 Aug 2007 George
Tenet, the former head of the Central Intelligence Agency, recognized
the danger posed by Al Qaeda [al-CIAduh] well before the attacks of
Sept. 11, 2001, but failed to adequately prepare the CIA to meet the
threat, according to an internal agency report that was released in
summary form Tuesday.

Leahy:
Cheney Told GOP-Led Congress It Was 'Not Allowed To Issue Subpoenas'
By Amanda 20 Aug 2007 Today in a press briefing, Sen. Patrick Leahy
(D-VT) revealed that the White House had missed its 2:30 PM deadline
to turn over documents to the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding legal
justifications for the National Security Agency’s eavesdropping program...
Leahy said that the administration’s stonewalling amounted to "contempt
of the valid order of the Congress," and pointed out that these
subpoenas were passed by broad bipartisan votes... But Vice President
[sic] Cheney personally barred him from issuing subpoenas: "In
fact, we were about to issue subpoenas then and one of the senators
came to our meeting and said that the vice president had met with
the Republican senators and told them they were not allowed to issue
subpoenas. Not quite sure that’s my understanding of the separation
of powers, but it seemed to work at that time."

Bloomberg
says won't run for president 21 Aug 2007 New York Mayor Michael
Bloomberg says he cannot win the U.S. presidency and won't run, the
strongest statement to date about his intentions for the 2008 presidential
race.

The
Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America
By Si Contino 20 Aug 2007 An integral part of globalization is deregulation
from publicly controlled institutions. For multinational corporations,
globalism has fostered a sense of dictatorial corporate collectivism;
where multinationals coalesce behind the communal self-interest of a
singular core philosophy; arresting regulatory oversight from sovereign
nations for the unfettered acquisition of corporate wealth. As for American
citizens, they’ve been nothing but regulated: The Patriot Act, the Total
Information Awareness Act, the Domestic Wiretapping Program, etc., etc...
Therefore, my closing admonition to you is this: When the political
class in America speaks about globalization having created freedom in
China; that’s code for freedom from corporate regulation.

Study
finds key markers for bird flu change 21 Aug 2007 Researchers
have found some of the changes that a flu virus needs to become a deadly
pandemic strain, and said on Tuesday the H5N1 avian influenza virus
has so far made only a few of them. [No worries --the Bush bioterror
team is *working hard* to get the avian flu pandemic party started!
See: Making
Killer Flu 12 Jun 2007 CDC scientists swap genes between bird
flu and human strains to 'plot the path of' [*create*] a possible pandemic
and Killer
flu recreated in the lab 07 Oct 2004.]

Roche
Joins the 5th International Bird Flu Summit as a Sponsor
--Joins three other elite companies as one of the Summit's Platinum
Sponsors (New-Fields)
21 Aug 2007 (Washington, DC) New-Fields Exhibitions announces the inclusion
of F. Hoffman-La Roche, a leading healthcare [pharma-terrorism] company,
among the platinum sponsors of the 5th International Bird Flu Summit
(IBFS) to be held on September 27 and 28 this year in Nevada USA. The
2-day event will cover an integrated approach to the bird flu threat
and will have discussions on pandemic prevention, preparedness, response,
and recovery [corpora-terrorism, profiteering and martial law].
About New-Fields Exhibitions: New Fields Exhibitions, Inc. is a leading
emerging markets and business information provider. With offices in
Washington, DC and overseas, the company provides marketing services
in the areas of construction, energy, oil &
gas, telecommunications and health care.

Public
kept in dark about problems with nuclear fuel at Tenn. plant
20 Aug 2007 A 3-year veil of secrecy in the
name of national security was used to keep the public in the dark
about the handling of highly enriched uranium at a nuclear fuel processing
plant. That included a leak that could have caused a deadly, uncontrolled
nuclear reaction. The leak turned out to be 1 of 9 violations or test
failures since 2005 at privately owned Nuclear Fuel Services
-- a longtime supplier of fuel to the US Navy's nuclear fleet. The
public was never told about the problems when they happened.

Army
lab documents found in trash bin 21 Aug 2007 Boxes of documents
containing personal information from the Walter Reed Army Institute
of Research were supposed to be shredded but instead turned up last
week in a trash bin, police said. The Silver Spring-based institute
is the Pentagon's largest biomedical research laboratory and is not
directly affiliated with the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in nearby
Washington.

Paying
the Price--Finding money for bridges, highways and much
else that America needs (The Washington Post) 21 Aug 2007 According
to a recent report by the New America Foundation, the United States
spent 3 percent of its gross domestic product on building and maintaining
infrastructure between 1950 and 1970. Since 1980 ['ketchup_as_vegetable'
Iran Contra terrorist Ronald Raygun], however, that share has been at
2 percent. One result is a backlog of deficient bridges, a problem that
will cost $9.4 billion a year for 20 years to redress, according to
a 2005 study by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).

An
Unjust Judge By Nan Aron 21 Aug 2007 To understand the furor
over President [sic] Bush's nomination of Leslie Southwick to the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, one should start with the Goode
family of Mississippi. A propane heater exploded in their house, killing
their granddaughter. The Goodes sued the manufacturer. After the trial,
new evidence emerged demonstrating that the company had provided inaccurate
information about servicing the heater. Yet, in a dissenting opinion,
Southwick argued that the Goodes didn't deserve a new trial.

White
House Acts to Limit Health Plan for Children 21 Aug 2007 The
Bush regime, continuing its fight to stop states from expanding the
popular Children’s Health Insurance Program, has adopted new standards
that would make it much more difficult for New York, California and
others to extend coverage to children in middle-income families.

Pencils,
pens, meds --As kids head to class, pharmaceutical companies
ramp up their drug marketing -- and it works. By Karin Klein 20
Aug 2007 Back-to-school season is in full swing. Time to pick out a
backpack, sneakers and a stimulant medication for attention-deficit
hyperactivity disorder... Direct-to-parent marketing of ADHD drugs --
most of which are stimulants -- has grown pervasive over the last few
years, despite a United Nations treaty banning most of it. Use of such
medications increased by more than 60% from 2001 to 2005, according
to the International Narcotics Control Board.

EU
urges Texas to halt executions before 400 mark 21 Aug 2007 The
European Union urged the governor of Texas on Tuesday to halt all executions
before the U.S. state carries out its 400th death sentence since reinstatement
of the penalty in 1976.

Carolina
prisons' chief defends putting inmates in pink 21 Aug 2007 A
US prisons director has defended a policy of punishing inmates found
performing public sex acts by dressing them in pink, despite a lawsuit
claiming it subjects prisoners to ridicule. South Carolina's Prisons
director John Ozmint said the two-year old punishment deters inmates
and protects female officers from prisoners who purposefully try to
humiliate them. His agency has asked a federal judge to dismiss the
lawsuit.

Foreclosures
Jump 93 Percent in July 21 Aug 2007 The number of foreclosure
filings reported in the U.S. last month jumped 93 percent from July
of 2006 and rose 9 percent from June, the latest sign that homeowners
are having trouble making payments and finding buyers during the national
housing downturn.

POLL:
Consumer Confidence Tanks in Sharpest Drop in 20 Years--Decline
Blamed on Stock Market Fall, Gasoline Prices, War in Iraq 21 Aug
2007 Consumer confidence sustained its steepest one-week drop in more
than 20 years of ongoing polls this week, falling to its lowest level
since the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in late October 2005. The ABC
News/Washington Post Consumer Comfort Index lost an extraordinary nine
points to -20 on its scale of +100 to -100, down from -11 last week...

Arctic
August: NYC Sets Record For Coldest Day--High of 59 Degrees
Ties Chilliest August High Set In 1911 21 Aug 2007 Don't forget
to bundle up if you're headed out in New York City today. After all,
it is August 21. The city along with the rest of the tri-state region
is feeling the chilly effect of a cold front sweeping through the region,
accompanied by cool rain showers.

*****

U.S.
foreign policy experts oppose Bush's surge 20 Aug 2007 More
than half of top U.S. foreign policy experts oppose President [sic]
George W. Bush's troop increase as a strategy for 'stabilizing' Baghdad,
saying the plan has harmed U.S. national security, according to a new
survey. 53 percent of the experts polled by Foreign Policy magazine
and the Center for American Progress said they now oppose Bush's troop
build-up.

Levin
Says Iraqi Lawmakers Should Replace Maliki 20 Aug 2007 Iraqi
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and his government should be voted out
of office by the country's parliament because he is incapable of bringing
about political unity, U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman
Carl Levin (D-MI) said.

Baird
sees need for longer U.S. role in Iraq 17 Aug 2007 U.S. Rep.
Brian Baird (DemocRAT-WA) said Thursday that his recent trip to Iraq
convinced him the military needs more time in the region, and that a
hasty pullout would cause chaos that helps Iran and harms U.S. security.

US
lawmakers get no respite at home on Iraq debate 20 Aug 2007
Anti-war groups knew U.S. Rep. Timothy Murphy was going home to Pittsburgh
for this month's congressional recess, so they baked him a cake. "Rep.
Murphy Welcome Home Bring Them Home," was the Iraq troop withdrawal
message written in green icing that greeted the conservative Republican
at his district office on Aug. 8.

Mega
barf alert!White
House: Iraq progress report could be Sept 1120
Aug 2007 U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and the top U.S. commander
in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus [Betrayus], will likely testiLIE to Congress
about progress in the war on September 11 or September 12, the White
House said on Monday.

U.S.
media curtail Iraq war coverage: study 20 Aug 2007 U.S. media
reporting of the war in Iraq fell sharply in the second quarter of 2007,
largely due to a drop in coverage of the Washington-based policy debate,
a study [by the Project for Excellence in Journalism] released Monday
said.

Menzies
backs demands for Army to leave Iraq 20 Aug 2007 Sir Menzies
Campbell has backed calls by military chiefs for British forces to pull
out of Iraq because they can "achieve nothing" by staying. The Liberal
Democrat leader has written to Gordon Brown urging him to set a "framework
for the complete withdrawal of all our forces" from Iraq. Sir Menzies
says withdrawing from Iraq would make it easier for British forces in
Afghanistan, where troops are at "full stretch" in dealing with the
Taliban.

British
troops 'will quit Iraq fight for Afghanistan' amid US criticism of role
20 Aug 2007 Ministers are planning to shift the UK's military focus
to Afghanistan, even as Britain faces growing criticism from the United
States over plans to withdraw from Iraq. The Ministry of Defence is
said to be considering a major reinforcement of the NATO mission in
Afghanistan, possibly sending up to 2,000 extra troops.

Allies
refuse to send more troops to Afghanistan as death toll rises
19 Aug 2007 Britain's European allies have flatly ruled out providing
extra military help for the increasingly deadly battle against 'insurgents'
in Afghanistan, Scotland on Sunday can reveal. A series of fellow members
of Nato and the European Union have repeatedly rejected UK pleas for
reinforcements for the multinational force trying to reconstruct Afghanistan
following six years of turmoil since the American-led operation to drive
out the Taliban.

Contractors
in Iraq Have Become U.S. Crutch 20 Aug 2007 Only estimates are
available for the total employment by contractors in Iraq that perform
"functions once carried by the U.S. military," according to a study
by the Congressional Research Service. Testimony at an April 2007 congressional
hearing gave the impressive figure of 127,000 as the number working
in Iraq under Defense Department contracts. CIA and the Pentagon intelligence
agencies have hired contractors in Iraq, but the tasks
and the funds involved are secret.

What
Unites Iraqis: Blocking Western Petroleum Companies From Seizing Control
of Their Oil--Despite
the ethnic bloodshed in Iraq, majorities of Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds
are united in their disapproval of the proposed oil laws that Washington
and Big Oil are pushing.
By Joshua Holland 09 Aug 2007 If passed, the Bush administration's long-sought
"hydrocarbons framework" law would give Big Oil access to Iraq's vast
energy reserves on the most advantageous terms and with virtually no
regulation. Meanwhile, a parallel law carving up the country’s oil revenues
threatens
to set off a fresh wave of conflict in the shell-shocked country.
Subhi al-Badri, head of the Iraqi Federation of Union Councils, said
last month that the "law is a bomb that may kill everyone."

Roadside
bomb kills second Iraqi governor 20 Aug 2007 An Iraqi provincial
governor was blown up by a [US] roadside bomb on Monday. Mohammed Ali
al-Hassani, [Shia] governor of Muthanna province, was on his way from
his home in the city of Rumaitha to Samawa, the provincial capital,
when his convoy of nine cars was hit by a powerful roadside bomb, provincial
officials said. One bodyguard was also killed and two others wounded.

Baghdad
car bomb kills five people – police 20 Aug 2007 At least five
people were killed when a bomb in a parked car exploded in the Shi'ite
Sadr City district of in northeastern Baghdad on Monday, police said.
Another 20 were wounded in the blast.

2
Charges Dropped as Trial of Abu Ghraib Officer Opens 20 Aug
2007 Military prosecutors dropped two charges against Army Lt. Col.
Steven L. Jordan this morning, hours before his court martial for allegedly
abusing prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq was set to begin
at Fort Meade.

Gitmo
plan has Kansans uneasy --Proposal to move prisoners raises
legal and safety questions 20 Aug 2007 As high-profile Republicans
increasingly join Democrats and civil rights groups in denouncing the
U.S. holding of alleged terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, a proposal to
move prisoners to this historic Army post in the geographic heart of
America is gaining widespread political support. Under the plan, several
hundred foreign prisoners could be transported from the U.S. detention
facility in Cuba, a prison that has evoked worldwide outrage amid allegations
of strong-arm interrogation tactics, to the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks
here, the Department of Defense's only maximum-security prison on U.S.
soil. The plan has drawn criticism from many residents around Ft. Leavenworth.

Jordan
won‘t hand over Saddam Hussein's daughter 20 Aug 2007 Jordan
indicated Monday it is not ready to surrender Saddam Hussein‘s eldest
daughter to Iraq, despite a new push from authorities in Baghdad [the
Bush regime in Washington] for her to face charges of funneling money
to Sunni 'insurgents.' Jordanian government spokesman Nasser Judeh said
Monday that Jordan was "not dealing with that situation right now."

U.S.
Funnels Aid to Coptic Christians, Documents Show 14 Aug 2007
The United States has quietly funnelled millions of dollars of its annual
aid to Egypt to groups among the country's increasingly restless Christian
Coptic community and to areas with large Christian populations as part
of an effort to "empower" the religious minority in a little-noticed
multi-year aid programme, according to a review of several recent congressional
documents. Most of the money has gone through the United States Agency
for International Development (USAID), which is part of the U.S. State
Department. The programme benefited more than 40 Christian Coptic non-governmental
organisations (NGOs) as of July 2006 at a cost
of dozens of millions of dollars of U.S. taxpayers' money.

Settlers
cut Palestinian water supply to fill swimming pool 19 Aug 2007
Residents of the settlement of Elon Moreh in the West Bank have cut
a pipe carrying drinking water to a nearby Palestinian village, and
are using it to fill a small swimming pool located at a picnic site,
which was itself built on land owned by the village. The pipe, which
carries water to the village of Dir al-Khatab, was rerouted in order
to fill the pool.

U.S.,
Israel sign record-high military aid deal
16 Aug 2007 The United States signed an unprecedented $30
billion military aid package with Israel on Thursday, bolstering
its closest Mideast ally and moving to secure Israel's military edge
over its neighbors long into the future.

U.S.
diplomat accused of anti-Arab comments retires 16 Aug 2007 A
U.S. diplomat accused of having said "the only good Arab is a dead Arab"
in a voice mail left with an Arab-American group has retired from the
government, the State Department said on Thursday. The 'diplomat,' Patrick
Syring, was accused of having made abusive, intimidating and racist
comments in e-mails and voice mails to employees of the Arab American
Institute, a Washington group that promotes Arab-American interests.

Smallpox
returns in terrorism simulation 20 Aug 2007 The first simulation
of how healthcare professionals would cope with a terrorist attack involving
smallpox will be carried out in Wales tomorrow. And the simulation comes
at a time when bio-security in the UK is under intense scrutiny following
the foot-and-mouth outbreak in Surrey, which is thought to have originated
at the a Pirbright laboratory compound [US
pharmaceutical firm].

Seven-year-old
Muslim boy stopped in US three times on suspicion of being a terrorist
20 Aug 2007 For seven-year-old Javaid Iqbal, the holiday to Florida
was a dream trip... But he was left in tears after he was stopped repeatedly
at airports on suspicion of being a terrorist. The security alerts were
triggered because Javaid shares his name with a Pakistani man deported
from the US, prompting staff at three airports to question his family
about his identity. The family even missed their flight home from the
U.S. after officials cancelled their tickets in the confusion.

Leahy:
'Time's up' for White House 20 Aug 2007 The White House asked
for more time to produce documents regarding the legality of the Bush
regime's warrantless surveillance program Monday, but the chairman of
the Senate committee that demanded them said "Time is up." Sen. Patrick
Leahy said the Senate Judiciary Committee has given White House officials
more than a month to turn over the documents and granted previous extensions
of a subpoena it issued in June.

Attorney
General Hatch in the wings? Rumors fly 19 Aug 2007 Rumors persist
that Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) will be nominated to take over as U.S.
attorney general should the scandal-embroiled Alberto Gonzales resign.
No matter the denials by Hatch and his office that he is not considering
giving up his day job to move to the Department of Justice, politicos
in Utah and Washington continue to spread the idea of Attorney General
Hatch.

The
Hospital Visit, Revisited --The FBI director verifies Mr.
Gonzales's arm-twisting. (The Washington Post) 20 Aug 2007 How many
more times will Alberto R. Gonzales's credibility have to be shredded
before his own sense of decency compels him to step down? ...Trying
to take advantage of a hospitalized man is despicable. That the behavior
was exhibited by the future attorney general in an effort to circumvent
the chain of command to get approval for a surveillance program the
administration's top lawyers had already said was unacceptable is nothing
less than disgraceful.

'Karl
Rove was at the center of the germination and actual commission of every
major crime of the Bush presidency.' Karl
Rove: Off to Another Criminal Mission
By Glen Ford 19 Aug 2007 U.S. corporate media cannot accurately cover
the crimes of Karl Rove, nor his exit from the White House, because
Rove's career is a pure extension of the most ancient machinations of
white supremacists. The Republican Party, heirs to the Dixiecrat legacy,
needs Karl Rove to continue his work in the vineyards of racist political
manipulation, suppression of non-white voters, and the production of
lies by the ton... Rove will be putting his powers at the service of
Republicans everywhere in 2008... He'll do what has always done, this
time for the Republican Party at large: rev up the racism, spin out
reams of lies, and advise on the best way to exclude Blacks and browns
from the polls, in 2008.

SPP
North American summit of leaders shrouded in UFO-style secrecy
By Paul Chen 16 Aug 2007 Secretive SPP Summit is expected to take place
in the vicinity of the now U.S. owned Fairmont Le Chateau Montebello.
There are two central questions that are associated with the planned
Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) Summit of the leaders of Canada,
the U.S. and Mexico scheduled to be held this August 20 and 21. The
first question is: Why the secrecy over a summit of supposedly democratic
leaders? The second question you might also enquire about is: Why
is the U.S. military on Canadian soil for the summit?

Clashes
break out at summit protest 20 Aug 2007 Police used tear gas
and pepper spray against protesters who were hurling rocks and branches
during confrontations outside the leaders summit in Quebec on Monday.
Police arrested at least one protester in the small resort town of Montebello,
near Ottawa, where Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is meeting
with U.S. President [sic] George W. Bush and Mexican President [sic]
Felipe Calderon to discuss issues including border security and free
trade.

Heathrow
protesters clash with riot police --Four arrested and five
injured after skirmishes outside offices of airport operator BAA
19 Aug 2007 Climate change campaigners clashed with riot police as they
descended on the BAA offices at Heathrow this afternoon to protest against
plans for a third runway at one of Europe's busiest airports. By 5pm,
four people had been arrested and at least five were injured. Skirmishes
broke out shortly after noon as protesters from the Camp for Climate
Action at Heathrow began their 24 hours of direct action.

Protesters
glue themselves to ministry doors 18 Aug 2007 As climate change
campaigners readied themselves for a weekend of direct action around
Heathrow, nine activists took their protest against airport expansion
to the heart of central London yesterday by glueing themselves to the
doors of the Department for Transport.

Diebold
Can't Sell Elections Unit
16 Aug 2007 Diebold Inc. said Thursday it has failed to sell its highly
criticized voting technology business, which is used in elections across
the country. Instead, the company said, it will allow the unit to operate
more independently, giving it a separate board of directors that includes
independent members and perhaps a new management structure.

Mexican
Trucks Roll Into America Sept 1 --Two Reports from OOIDA
- Owner Operators Independent Drivers Association By Jim Kirwan
19 Aug 2007 FMCSA - Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration proceeding
with cross-border plan... Mexico Plans to Send Trucks Across Border
--Officials from the Mexican government will meet next week with U.S.
Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters in Tijuana to "see the progress
of the program" and to "guarantee the start."

After
Foreclosure, a Big Tax Bill From the I.R.S. 20 Aug 2007 Two
years ago, William Stout lost his home in Allentown, Pa., to foreclosure
when he could no longer make the payments on his $106,000 mortgage.
Wells Fargo offered the two-bedroom house for sale on the courthouse
steps. No bidders came forward. So Wells Fargo
bought it for $1, county records show. But on July 9, the
Stouts received a bill from the Internal Revenue Service for $34,603
in back taxes.

Olbermann
on NBC --July viewership average: 721,000 20 Aug 2007
"Countdown With Keith Olbermann" the highly rated cable news
program, will be shown on network television on Sunday before a preseason
NBC football game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Pittsburgh
Steelers. "'Countdown' is rocketing right now over at MSNBC — its
ratings are going through the roof," said Phil Griffin, senior
vice president of NBC News.

Vick
to Enter Guilty Plea --Atlanta Falcons QB Could Face Additional
Charges 20 Aug 2007 A Virginia newspaper is reporting that Atlanta
Falcons quarterback Michael Vick will plead guilty next Monday after
being indicted on dogfighting charges along with three co-defendants.
"Mike's accepting full responsibility," Lawrence Woodward, one of Vick's
defense attorneys, told the Virginian-Pilot.

Hurricane,
Now Category 5, Approaches Coast of Mexico
20 Aug 2007 Hurricane Dean strengthened to a Category 5 storm and lashed
Belize and Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula with rain tonight as it approached
shore. Deans' winds reached a "potentially catastrophic" 260
kilometers per hour (160 miles per hour) at its center, putting the
storm into the strongest category on the Saffir-Simpson scale, the National
Hurricane Center said in its 11 p.m. Miami time advisory.

*****

British
forces useless in Basra, say officials 19 Aug 2007 In Britain,
Gordon Brown's government has tried to depict a quiet process of handover
to Iraqi troops in Basra, which will see the remaining forces in the
city withdraw to the airport in November... One US official said that
recent US military intelligence reports sent to the White House had
concluded that Britain had "lost" Basra, and that Pentagon war games
were predicting a virtual civil war in the South once British troops
left. He said: "When the White House makes the case for continuing the
surge on the Hill they will say: 'Look what happened in Basra when the
Brits went back to their barracks. We can't pull out now. Give us more
time to get it right'."

British
military sparks US fears of losing Basra 20 Aug 2007 Military
advisers in the United States have warned that British troops face an
"ugly and embarrassing" withdrawal from the southern Iraqi city of Basra.
Stephen Biddle, who sits on the Council on Foreign Relations and is
a member of a group that advised the US commander in Iraq, General David
Petraeus, told The Sunday Times in London that 'coalition'
forces were no longer in control of the city.

Army
chief says soldiers "certainly stretched" 19 Aug 2007 Britain's
army has been stretched by missions in Iraq and Afghanistan and is not
in a position to deploy any more soldiers, army chief Richard Dannatt
said in an interview broadcast on Sunday.

Extending
Iraq buildup would be tough 19 Aug 2007 Sapped by nearly six
years of war, the Army has nearly exhausted its fighting force and its
options if the Bush regime decides to extend the Iraq buildup beyond
next spring.

The
War as We Saw It
By Buddhika Jayamaha, Wesley D. Smith, Jeremy Roebuck, Omar Mora, Edward
Sandmeier, Yance T. Gray and Jeremy A. Murphy 19 Aug 2007 The claim
that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an
assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework.
Yes, we are militarily superior, but our successes are offset by failures
elsewhere... This situation is made more complex by the questionable
loyalties and Janus-faced role of the Iraqi police and Iraqi Army, which
have been trained and armed at United States taxpayers' expense... Four
years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise, while we
have substituted Baath Party tyranny with a tyranny of Islamist, militia
and criminal violence.

Children
Among 12 Killed By Iraq Mortars --U.S. Military Advisor Predicts
U.K. Withdrawal From Iraq Will Be "Ugly And Embarrassing" 19 Aug
2007 A mortar barrage slammed into an east Baghdad neighborhood Sunday,
killing 12 and wounding 31, police said... Women and children were among
the dead and wounded in the Baghdad mortar attack, and some houses in
the neighborhood were damaged, according to police.

Ahmadinejad
may visit Iraq: report 19 Aug 2007 Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad has accepted an invitation to visit neighboring Iraq, Iran's
foreign minister said on Sunday, a move that would be unlikely to be
welcomed by the United States.

Iran
Trains Militiamen Inside Iraq, U.S. Says 20 Aug 2007 A senior
U.S. general said Sunday that about 50 members of an elite Iranian military
unit are training Shiite militias south of Baghdad, the first time the
U.S. military has alleged that Iranians are aiding 'insurgents' from
inside Iraq. Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, who commands U.S. operations south
of Baghdad, said the men were sent by Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps
-- a military branch that the U.S. government has decided to label a
"specially designated global terrorist" -- to train Shiite 'insurgents'
in firing mortars and rockets.

U.S.:
Americans tracking Iranian forces in Iraq 19 Aug 2007 American
forces are tracking about 50 members of an elite Iranian force who have
[allegedly] crossed the border into southern Iraq to train Shiite militia
fighters, a top U.S. general said Sunday.

US
steps closer to war with Iran By Kaveh L Afrasiabi 18 Aug 2007
The Bush administration has leaped toward war with Iran by, in essence,
declaring war with the main branch of Iran's military, the Iranian Revolutionary
Guards Corps (IRGC), which it plans to brand as a terrorist organization.
A logical evolution of US President [sic] George W Bush's ill-defined,
boundless "war on terror", the White House's move is dangerous to the
core, opening the way for open confrontation with Iran... Under international
law, the United States' move could be challenged as illegal, and untenable,
by isolating a branch of the Iranian government for selective targeting.
This is contrary to the 1981 Algiers Accord's pledge of non-interference
in Iran's internal affairs by the US government.

Shock
toll of British injured in Afghan war --Half of frontline
troops 'patched-up' -- Senior officers fear exodus 19 Aug 2007 The
human cost of the war in Afghanistan to British soldiers can be revealed
today as figures show that almost half of frontline troops have required
significant medical treatment during this summer's fighting. ...In Helmand
province, more than 700 battlefield soldiers have needed treatment since
April - nearly half of the 1,500 on the front line. The figures, obtained
from senior military sources, have never been released by the government,
which has faced criticism that it has covered up the true extent of
injuries sustained during the conflict.

Army
cuts time spent on training Aims to bolster front lines quickly
19 Aug 2007 The US Army, struggling to cope with stepped-up operations
and extended deployments of its soldiers to Iraq, has shortened the
duration of several of its bedrock training courses so that troops can
return to fighting units on the front lines more quickly, according
to senior training officials.

Uncle
Sam Wants…You? As military recruiters continue targeting students,
they're increasingly trying to win the hearts and minds of educators.
Apr 2007 One of the U.S. Marine Corps’ newest "recruits" is
running through the mud on Parris Island, South Carolina—the training
depot where nearly 17,000 enlistees submit to a grueling 13-week boot
camp each year... The next morning, Bethany Deckard will tuck her cheek
into the cold contours of an M16 and fire multiple rounds to practice
"engaging" the enemy. For the Marines, just having Deckard
at the depot is a victory... Deckard is a high school teacher, and that
makes her one of the military’s most highly sought allies right now.
The Army, Marine Corps, Navy, and Air Force are working overtime to
win the attention of teachers and education support professionals in
order to reach their ultimate quarry: students.

Military
Interrogators are Posing as Lawyers at Gitmo By Sherwood Ross
17 Aug 2007 Military interrogators posing as "lawyers" are attempting
to trick Guantanamo prisoners into providing them with information,
The Catholic Worker (TCW) reports. This incredible and illegal
practice contributes "to the prisoners' suspicions that the (real) lawyers
are not to be trusted and could be aiding the government," TCW says
in its July issue. This subterfuge is only one of the many treacherous
tactics the government is employing to sabotage the efforts of lawyers
to represent their clients.

APA
votes down terror-interrogation measure
--Members at S.F. convention reject banning presence at suspects'
questioning 19 Aug 2007 After a raucous debate about what role -
if any -- psychologists should play in U.S. government interrogations
of terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, the American Psychological Association
voted overwhelmingly today to reject a measure that would have banned
its members from those interrogations.

US
psychologists weigh ban on Guantanamo interrogations 18 Aug
2007 The largest U.S. group of psychologists is to decide Sunday what
role, if any, its members can play in interrogating terror suspects
at Guantanamo Bay and other U.S. military detention centers. The American
Psychological Association, which is holding its annual meeting in San
Francisco, is scheduled to vote Sunday on two competing measures concerning
its 148,000 members' participation in military interrogations.

'You've
turned the court into a spectator.'Concern
Over Wider Spying Under New Law 19 Aug 2007 Broad new surveillance
powers approved by Congress this month could allow the Bush regime to
conduct spy operations that go well beyond wiretapping to include
— without court approval — certain types of physical searches on American
soil and the collection of Americans’ business records, Democratic Congressional
officials and other experts said. Several legal experts said that by
redefining the meaning of "electronic surveillance," the new
law... indirectly gives the government the power to use intelligence
collection methods far beyond wiretapping that previously required court
approval if conducted inside the United States.

Terror
law puts Britons at risk of surveillance by US agents --New
act led to fears of huge increase in number of British citizens being
extradited to US 19 Aug 2007 A new law swept through Congress by
the US government before the summer recess is to give American security
agencies unprecedented powers to spy on British citizens without a warrant.
It has now emerged that the bill gives the security services powers
to intercept all telephone calls, internet traffic and emails made by
British citizens across US-based networks.

Secret
Court Asks For White House View on Inquiry --ACLU Seeking
Rulings Issued On Warrantless Wiretapping 18 Aug 2007 A secret U.S.
intelligence court has ordered the Bush administration to register its
views about a records request by the American Civil Liberties Union,
which wants the court to release a series of pivotal orders issued earlier
this year about the National Security Agency's wiretapping program.

Judges
Skeptical of State-Secrets Claim 16 Aug 2007 Lawyers for the
Bush regime encountered a federal appeals court Wednesday that appeared
deeply skeptical of a blanket claim that the government's surveillance
efforts cannot be challenged in court because the litigation might reveal
state secrets. "The bottom line here is the government declares something
is a state secret, that's the end of it. No cases. . . . The king
can do no wrong," said Judge Harry Pregerson, one of three judges
from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit who grilled administration
lawyers at length over whether a pair of lawsuits against the government
should go forward.

Defense
Agency Proposes Outsourcing More Spying --Contracts
Worth $1 Billion Would Set Record 19 Aug 2007 The Defense
Intelligence Agency is preparing to pay private contractors up to $1
billion to conduct core intelligence tasks of analysis and collection
over the next five years, an amount that would set a record in the outsourcing
of such functions by the Pentagon's top spying agency.

Portland
to Host Terrorism Drill "NOBLE RESOLVE 07-2" Aug. 20 to 24
--Citizens Warn of Established Pattern for Such Drills to go "live"
(Oregon Truth Alliance) This is an urgent advisory notice from concerned
citizens of Oregon and Washington about an upcoming U.S. Joint Forces
Command emergency management exercise known as NOBLE RESOLVE 07-2 that
will simulate terrorism or disaster scenarios in the Lower Columbia
River Basin between Aug. 20th and Aug 24th, 2007. NOBLE RESOLVE 07-2
was designed and will be directed by U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM)
and the Department of Homeland Security.

APEC
visitors to bypass quarantine 20 Aug 2007 Delegates to the Asia-Pacific
Economic Co-operation summit will be exempt from any quarantine screening
and sped through Sydney Airport if they say they have nothing to declare,
a quarantine officer says. Staff have been asked to watch for delegates
in the baggage claim area and direct them to the express exits to get
them out of the airport as quickly as possible, the officer said.

Feds'
Porn Ultimatum 19 Aug 2007 The Department of inJustice
wants to come up with an official list of every porn star in America
- and slap stiff penalties on producers who don't cooperate. The new
rules, proposed under the Adam Walsh Child Safety and Protection Act,
would require blue-movie makers to keep photos, stage names, professional
names, maiden names, aliases, nicknames and ages on file for the inspection
of the department's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section.

Secret
White House Manual: How to Stop Anti-Bush T-Shirts
17 Aug 2007 The Bush administration has agreed to pay $80,000 to a husband
and wife who were ejected from a p_Residential rally because of their
anti-Bush T-shirts. The settlement, in which the government admitted
no wrongdoing, came after the disclosure of an allegedly "sensitive"
Presidential Advance Manual, which laid out the White House's meticulous
efforts to protect the president and his public image from dissent.
"As a last resort, security should remove the demonstrators from the
event," the manual instructs. Inside the event space, the manual advises,
White House advance personnel should preposition "rally squads" that
can swarm any protester... The rally squads can be formed using "college/young
republican organizations [and other assorted Nazis], local athletic
teams, and fraternities/sororities," the manual notes.

How
Rove Harnessed Government for GOP Gains --Bush Adviser's
Effort to Promote the President and His Allies Was Unprecedented in
Its Reach 19 Aug 2007 Thirteen months before President [sic] Bush
was re[s]elected, chief strategist
Karl Rove summoned political appointees from around the government to
the Old Executive Office Building. The subject of the Oct. 1, 2003,
meeting was "asset deployment," and the message was clear: The staging
of official announcements, high-visibility trips and declarations of
federal grants had to be carefully coordinated with the White House
political affairs office to ensure the maximum promotion of Bush's re[s]election
agenda and the Republicans in Congress who supported him, according
to documents and some of those involved in the effort.

Bush
gives extra $ to 'help' a red state:Bush
OKs hurricane emergency for Texas18 Aug 2007 President [sic]
Bush, who was criticized for a slow federal response to Hurricane Katrina
[which hit a blue state], took a pre-emptive strike [puke] Saturday
against Hurricane Dean, blowing through the Caribbean and threatening
the Texas coast. Mr. Bush, who received two hurricane briefings at his
ranch, signed a pre-landfall disaster declaration, allowing the federal
government to move in 'people, equipment and supplies' [i.e., to
implement police state measures and give KBR and Blackwater USA an extra
blow job] immediately if Hurricane Dean hits the state.

Clock
is Ticking on Las Vegas' Water Supply 17 Aug 2007 The news coming
from the Southern Nevada Water Authority Thursday about the valley's
future water supply is worrisome. Unless we act quickly, there will
be no water for hundreds of thousands of Las Vegas Valley residents
in just three years.

Medicare
Says It Won't Cover Hospital Errors 19 Aug 2007 In a significant
policy change, Bush administration officials say that Medicare will
no longer pay the extra costs of treating preventable errors, injuries
and infections that occur in hospitals, a move they say could save lives
and millions of dollars.

Phone
call put brakes on bridge repair --Plans to reinforce the
bridge were well underway when the project came to a screeching halt
in January amid concerns about safety and cost. 18 Aug 2007 The
men and women whose job was to ensure the safety of Bridge 9340 were
meeting once again [Dec. 6]... It appeared that the most studied bridge
in Minnesota, the focus of worrisome inspection reports for a decade,
was finally going to have its most glaring weaknesses fixed. But five
weeks later, all those preparations stopped. In a single conference
call on Jan. 17, the same consultants who said reinforcement plates
were needed to strengthen the bridge cautioned MnDOT that drilling for
the retrofit could weaken it. Internal MnDOT documents reviewed by the
Star Tribune reveal that last year bridge officials
talked openly about the possibility of the bridge collapsing
-- and worried that it might have to be condemned.

Families
of missing Utah miners accuse feds, company of giving up 19
Aug 2007 Six coal miners caught in a cave-in may never be found and
could forever be lost to the still-quivering mountain, officials conceded
Sunday, abandoning the optimism they've maintained publicly for nearly
two weeks. Relatives responded by accusing federal officials and the
mine's owners of quitting on the rescue effort and leaving the men for
dead.

Bush
mine safety official walks out of Senate hearing into Sago disaster
By Samuel Davidson and Jerry Isaacs 27 Jan 2006 David Dye, the acting
director of the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), walked
out halfway through a two-hour Senate hearing Monday on the Sago Mine
disaster, refusing to answer questions about his agency’s failure to
enforce safety regulations that might have saved 14 West Virginia miners
who were killed in two separate accidents this month.

Paul
Wins Alabama GOP Informal Straw Poll 18 Aug 2007 On Saturday,
the Alabama Republican Assembly tried to get a sense of which conservative
candidate Alabamians are supporting most by holding an informal straw
poll at the Bryant Conference Center. Out of 266 ballots cast, it was
Texas Congressman Ron Paul by an overwhelming majority, with former
Massachusetts Gov. [sociopath] Mitt Romney in a distant second.

Tougher
rules urged to protect Arctic 19 Aug 2007 The Arctic could face
"irreparable damage" unless tougher rules are made to curb
the scramble by world powers for the region’s resources, a leading international
environmental group has warned. WWF – formerly the World Wildlife Fund
– called for an Arctic treaty or other multilateral agreement to prevent
conflict and help the region survive the severe impact of climate change.

Thousands
flee 145mph winds as hurricane hits Jamaica 20 Aug 2007 Jamaicans
are today assessing the damage after a night of terror as Hurricane
Dean swept over them. Hundreds of people headed for government shelters
but most defied pleas to abandon their homes as the 17-mile wide "eye-wall"
- the location of the most damaging winds and intense rainfall - arrived
just south of the island.

*****

Commerce,
Treasury funds helped boost GOP campaigns
17 Aug 2007 Top Commerce and Treasury Departments officials appeared
with Republican candidates and doled out millions in federal money in
battleground congressional districts and states after receiving White
House political briefings detailing GOP election strategy. Political
appointees in the Treasury Department received at least 10 political
briefings from July 2001 to August 2006, officials familiar with the
meetings said. Their counterparts at the Commerce Department received
at least four briefings — all in the 'election' years of 2002, 2004
and 2006.

Poll
shows most Americans not trust Sept. Iraq report
18 Aug 2007 A majority of Americans do not trust the upcoming report
by top U.S. commander in Iraq on the progress of the war, according
to a new poll released on Friday. U.S. President [sic] George W. Bush
has frequently asked Congress and the American people to withhold judgment
on his so-called "troop surge" in Iraq until , the top commander in
Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, U.S. ambassador to Iraq, issue their progress
report in September. But according to a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll
released on Friday, 53 percent of people polled said they suspect that
the military assessment of the situation will try to make it sound better
than it actually is.

Ammunition
Shortage Squeezes Police 17 Aug 2007 Troops training for and
fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are firing more than 1
billion bullets a year,
contributing to ammunition shortages hitting police departments nationwide
and preventing some officers from training with the weapons they carry
on patrol. An Associated Press review of dozens of police and sheriff's
departments found that many are struggling with delays of as long as
a year for both handgun and rifle ammunition. And the shortages are
resulting in prices as much as double what departments were paying
just a year ago.

Defense
Contractor Was Paid $1 Million to Ship 2 Washers 17 Aug 2007
A South Carolina defense contractor pleaded guilty yesterday to bilking
the Pentagon out of $20.5 million over nearly 10 years by adding hundreds
of thousands of dollars to the cost of shipping spare parts such as
metal washers and lamps. The parts were bound for key military installations,
including those in Iraq and Afghanistan. In one instance, in 2006, the
government paid C&D Distributors $998,798 in transportation costs
for shipping two 19-cent washers.

Texan
oilman pleads guilty in oil-for-food case
17 Aug 2007 Texas oilman David Chalmers and two companies he owns pleaded
guilty on Friday to paying millions of dollars
in secret kickbacks to Iraq in connection with the United
Nations oil-for-food program. Chalmers, 53, pleaded guilty in Manhattan
federal court to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, just
weeks before he was due to go on trial with Texas oil tycoon Oscar Wyatt.

Images
show pleading Iraq prisoners --U.S. forces and Iraq's own
security forces have imprisoned tens of thousands of detainees without
charge in the four years since the fall of President Saddam Hussein.
18 Aug 2007 Rare footage from inside a Baghdad prison camp shows hundreds
of inmates packed into wire-mesh tents, protesting their innocence.
"I have been jailed for two years and have never been put before
a judge or court!" one prisoner is shown shouting. The video pictures
were given to Reuters Television on Saturday by the office of Sunni
Arab Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, who visited the Rusafa prison
compound in eastern Baghdad with his Shi'ite counterpart.

Medical
crisis in Iraq as doctors and nurses flee 18 Aug 2007 The humanitarian
disaster in Iraq is being compounded by a mass exodus of their medical
staff fleeing chronic violence and lawlessness. The research [report
by Oxfam International] revealed that many hospitals, and medical teaching
facilities in Baghdad have lost up to 80 per cent of their teaching
staff.

Mortars,
Bombs in Iraq's North Kill 11 18 Aug 2007 Mortar shells slammed
into a Shiite enclave north of Baghdad, killing at least seven people
on Saturday, police said, while officials in Kirkuk warned that a string
of deadly bombings showed that 'insurgents' were finding new ways to
thwart security measures.

Billions
In U.S. Aid Wasted In Afghanistan
16 Aug 2007 American doctor Dave Warner is on a mission in eastern Afghanistan
to show people back home how billions of taxpayer dollars sent here
are being wasted. "When I was here in December," Warner told
CBS News. "This was full so you can see they've dug another pit
over here." Rotting bio-waste is dumped in the hospital's backyard
because as Warner and the hospital director showed us next — the new
waste incinerator donated by the U.S. government is completely useless.
Even if the hospital knew how to run it, they can't afford the fuel...
Warner is a public health expert from San Diego who's taken it upon
himself to do what no one else in Afghanistan seems to be doing — documenting
the failures in reconstruction.

Suicide
raid on U.S. security firm kills 15 Afghans 18 Aug 2007 A suicide
car bomb attack outside a base of a U.S. security firm [Houston-based
USPI] on Saturday killed 15 people in Afghanistan's southern province
of Kandahar, witnesses and police said. [See: American
security contractor allegedly shoots dead his Afghan interpreter
30 Sep 2005 Guards for a U.S. security firm obstructed an investigation
into whether one of its supervisors fatally shot his Afghan interpreter,
an Afghan police chief said Friday. Noor Ahmad, 37, was shot in the
head Tuesday at the compound of his employer, U.S. Protection and Investigations,
at Tut village in Farah province's Gulistan district, police and provincial
officials said.]

Six
Iranian guards killed in helicopter crash 18 Aug 2007 Six Iranian
Revolutionary Guards were killed when their helicopter crashed during
an operation against rebels close to the Iraqi border, the semi-official
Mehr news agency reported on Saturday.

U.S.
actions against Iran raise war risk, many fear 17 Aug 2007 As
President [sic] Bush escalates the United States' confrontation with
Iran across a broad front, U.S. allies in Europe and the Middle East
are growing worried that the steps will achieve little, but will undercut
diplomacy and increase the chances of war.

As
U.S. Steps Up Pressure on Iran, Aftereffects Worry Allies 16
Aug 2007America's
allies are increasingly concerned about the Bush regime's plans to unilaterally
escalate pressure on Iran, fearing that an evolving strategy may also
set in motion a process that could lead to military action if Iran does
not back down, according to diplomats and officials of foreign countries.

US
set to blacklist 'terrorist' Iranian guards 16 Aug 2007 The
Bush regime plans to blacklist as a "global terrorist" group
Iran’s revolutionary guards, the Islamic fanatics who operate as a shadowy
parallel force under the direct authority of the Iranian spiritual leader.
The surprise designation, a provocative move which will infuriate Tehran,
will allow the US to move against the group’s business and financial
interests as part of the campaign to rein in Iran’s nuclear programme.

Castro:
Cuba not cashing US Guantanamo rent checks 17 Aug 2007 The United
States pays Cuba $4,085 a month in rent for the controversial Guantanamo
naval base, but Cuba has only once cashed a check in almost half a century
and then only by mistake, Fidel Castro wrote in an essay published on
Friday. The ailing Cuban leader said he had refused to cash the checks
to protest the "illegal" U.S. occupation of the land which he said was
now used for "dirty work".

The
old Iran-Contra death squad gang is desperate to discredit Chavez
--Democracy and hope in Latin America have been revived by Venezuela's
leader. But the forces allied against him are formidable By John Pilger
Friday 17 Aug 2007 Thousands of "the detained and the disappeared" were
imprisoned in the stadium following the Washington-backed coup by General
Pinochet against the democracy of Salvador Allende on September 11 1973.
For the majority people of Latin America, the abandonados, the infamy
and historical lesson of the first "9/11" have never been forgotten...
In Washington, the old Iran-Contra death squad gang, back in power under
Bush, fear the economic bridges Chávez is building in the region, such
as the use of Venezuela's oil revenue to end IMF slavery.

US
signs deal to give $30bn in military aid to Israel
16 Aug 2007 US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns has signed a deal
that will provide Israel with $30bn (£14.8bn) of military aid over the
next 10 years. The new military aid package represents a 25% increase
from present levels.

U.S.:
No strings attached to new defense package for Israel 17 Aug
2007 The new $30 billion American defense package for Israel is not
conditioned on diplomatic progress or concessions to the Palestinians,
a top U.S. aide said Thursday as representatives from both countries
signed the memorandum of understanding in Jerusalem. U.S. Under Secretary
of State Nicholas Burns said the aid to Israel was meant to counter
"an axis of cooperation between Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad
and Hamas [No, the US] that is responsible for the violence in
the region."

Padilla
Case Offers New Model of Terrorism Trial [Yeah, the kangaroo model]
18
Aug 2007 The 'Justice' Department’s strategy in the trial itself, using
a seldom-tested conspiracy law and relatively thin evidence, cemented
a new prosecutorial model in terrorism cases. The central charge against
Mr. Padilla was that he conspired to murder, maim and kidnap people
in a foreign country... But prosecutors needed to prove very little
by way of concrete conduct to obtain a conviction under the law. "It
is a pretty big leap between a mere indication of desire to attend a
camp and a crystallized desire to kill, maim and kidnap," said
Peter S. Margulies, a law professor at Roger Williams University who
has also written on conspiracy charges in terrorism prosecutions. The
conspiracy charge against Mr. Padilla, Professor Margulies continued,
"is highly amorphous, and it basically allows someone to be
found guilty for something that is one step away from a thought crime."

White
House wants more time on subpoenas 17 Aug 2007 The White House
on Friday asked a Senate panel for more time to produce subpoenaed information
about the legal justification for President [sic] Bush's secretive eavesdropping
program. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy had set Monday
as the deadline for administration officials already subpoenaed to provide
documents and testimony about the National Security Agency's eavesdropping
program. The White House already has been given one extension, said
an aide to Leahy, D-Vt.

Judge:
Feds must answer ACLU demands 17 Aug 2007 The government must
answer a watchdog group's demands to release records about the nation's
classified terrorist spying program, the chief judge of a secretive
national security court has ruled. The American Civil Liberties Union,
which announced the order Friday, said it was the first time the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court had responded to a request filed by
the public. In her 2-page order, dated Aug. 16, Presiding Judge Colleen
Kollar-Kotelly called the ACLU's demand "an unprecedented request that
warrants further briefing."

Minister:
Death To My Tax Status Critics --Calif. Clergyman Condemns
Those Who Complained To IRS Criticizing His Political Endorsement of
Huckabee 17 Aug 2007 A California minister who used church stationery
and an Internet radio program to endorse former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R)
for president is asking his followers to pray
for the deaths of those who filed a complaint against him
with the IRS. The Rev. Wiley S. Drake of the First Southern Baptist
Church of Buena Park, Calif., called for "imprecatory prayer" targeting
Barry W. Lynn, Joe Conn and Jeremy Leaming of Americans United for Separation
of Church and State.

Mexican
trucks may get full access to U.S. highways
17 Aug 2007 Some Mexican trucks will be allowed
to carry cargo anywhere in the United States as soon as a
federal inspector general certifies 'safety' and inspection plans, the
Bush administration announced today. The latest step toward implementing
a controversial provision of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement
drew instant condemnation from labor and driver-owner groups that fear
the program will erode highway safety and eliminate U.S. jobs.

Handling
of Mine Disaster Questioned --AP: Critics Question Government
Handling of Utah Mine Disaster 18 Aug 2007 The government agency
overseeing coal mine safety was supposed to have changed its ways after
West Virginia's deadly Sago Mine disaster. Its handling of the cave-ins
at Utah's Crandall Canyon Mine have some worried that the changes didn't
go far enough.

Utah
Mine Rescuers Halt Search After 3 Deaths 18 Aug 2007 A sense
of doleful finality settled on Friday over the quivering mountain here
that swallowed six coal miners 11 days ago. Underground search efforts
intended to find them were indefinitely suspended after crumbling walls
in the Crandall Canyon Mine killed two rescue workers and a federal
mine inspector on Thursday evening. ...The reality sank in among the
residents here that the six men, trapped 1,800 feet beneath the surface,
might never be found.

Organize
the mines! (The Militant) 03 Sep 2007 The collapse of the Crandall
Canyon coal mine in central Utah, which has trapped six workers 1,500
feet underground since August 6, highlights one fact above all. The
only effective way miners can fight for control over job conditions
is to organize a union and use workers’ collective power to enforce
safety. Coal mine disasters are not due to "acts of God" as
Murray Energy Corp. claims. Dangerous job conditions are the result
of decisions by bosses to squeeze maximum profits out of our labor,
including by seeing how much they can get away with cutting corners
on safety and health. That’s how capitalism works... In March, two sections
of the Crandall Canyon mine collapsed. Instead of closing the mine,
"operators moved to another section and continued chipping away,"
the Associated Press reported. That’s what can happen when workers lack
a union to enforce basic safety conditions.

N.C.
waitress applauds minimum wage hike 18 Aug 2007 A North Carolina
waitress on Saturday lauded the Democratic-initiated increase in the
minimum wage, saying in the party's weekly radio address that the extra
money will have a ripple effect on millions of lives. Fawn Townsend,
a nightshift server in Raleigh, N.C., criticized Republicans for blocking
efforts to raise the minimum wage over the last 10 years.

Unregulated
Release of GM Poplars and Hybrids--USDA rubberstamps the
largest ever collection of transgenic poplars with uncharacterized and
dangerous constructs By Prof. Joe Cummins and Dr. Mae-Wan Ho 17
Aug 2007 This report has been submitted to the USDA on behalf of ISIS
[Institute of Science in Society]. Please circulate widely and click
onto the link to the USDA
docket to register your objection to-day!

Court
further delays Alaska offshore drilling --Shell blocked from
area off Prudhoe Bay due to lawsuit by natives, activists 16 Aug
2007 A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that Royal Dutch Shell
PLC must further postpone plans for exploratory oil drilling off the
northern coast of Alaska.

Arctic
sea ice shrinks to record low 17 Aug 2007 There was less sea
ice in the Arctic on Friday than ever before on record, and the melting
is continuing, the National Snow and Ice Data Center reported. "Today
is a historic day," said Mark Serreze, a senior research scientist
at the center. "This is the least sea ice we've ever seen in the satellite
record and we have another month left to go in the melt season this
year."

Hurricane
Dean approaches Category 5 18 Aug 2007 Hurricane Dean is expected
to grow into a ferocious Category 5 storm as it passes Jamaica and nears
Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and the oil and gas rigs of the Gulf of Mexico
after it smashed into several Caribbean islands, the US National Hurricane
Centre said on Saturday.

State
Operations Center Opens Saturday As Texas Braces For Dean 17
Aug 2007 The State Operations Center activates fully Saturday morning
as state officials set a plan in motion to ensure the state is prepared
should Hurricane Dean take aim at the Texas coast next week. Gov. Perry
declared the storm an "imminent threat" on Friday and initiated full-scale
preparations.

*****

'Every
ampersand, every comma is Top Secret?'NSA
Judge: 'I feel like I'm in Alice and Wonderland' By Kevin Poulsen
16 Aug 2007 AT&T attorney Michael Kellogg has taken the podium, and,
not surprisingly, insists the case has to be dismissed. He says AT&T
customers have no actual proof or direct knowledge that their communications
were forwarded to the government without warrants. "The government
has said that whatever AT&T is doing with the government is a state
secret," Kellogg says. He adds, "As a consequence, no evidence can
come in whether the individuals' communications were ever accepted or
whether we played any role in it..." Judge Hawkins wonders if the document
is really that secret? "Every ampersand, every comma is Top Secret?,"
Hawkins asks. "This document is totally non-redactable and non-segregable
and cannot even be meaningfully described," Assistant U.S. Attorney
General Thomas Bondy answers.

Homeland
Security Enlists Clergy to Quell Public Unrest if Martial Law Ever Declared
15 Aug 2007 Could martial law ever become a reality in America? Some
fear any nuclear, biological or chemical attack on U.S. soil might trigger
just that. KSLA News 12 has discovered that the clergy would help the
government with potentially their biggest problem: Us. If martial law
were enacted here at home... easing public fears and quelling dissent
would be critical. And that's exactly what
the 'Clergy Response Team' helped accomplish in the wake of Katrina.
Dr. Durell Tuberville serves as chaplain for the Shreveport Fire Department
and the Caddo Sheriff's Office. For the clergy team, one of the biggest
tools that they will have in helping calm the public down or to obey
the law is the bible itself, specifically Romans 13. Dr. Tuberville
elaborated, "because the government's established by the Lord, you
know. And, that's what we believe in the Christian faith. That's what's
stated in the scripture."['Easing
public fears and quelling dissent would be critical.']

Armed
Robots Pushed to Police By Noah Shachtman 16 Aug 2007 Armed
robots -- similar to the ones now
on patrol in Iraq -- are being marketed to domestic police forces,
according to the machines' manufacturer and law enforcement officers.
None of the gun-toting 'bots appear to have been deployed domestically,
yet. Both cops and company officials say it's only a matter of time,
however. "Other than some R&D with the shotgun mount, we haven't used
it operationally," Massachusetts State Police Trooper Mike Rogowski
tells DANGER ROOM. "But they're on the way. They're coming,"

Troops
in Iraq to Reach Record Level 16 Aug 2007 The number of U.S.
troops in Iraq could jump to 171,000 this fall - a record high for the
war - as military leaders expect stepped-up 'insurgent' attacks timed
to a progress report from American commanders in Baghdad.

U.S.
to have over 170,000 troops in Iraq 16 Aug 2007 The number of
U.S. troops in Iraq will reach a new high of more than 170,000 later
this year as departing and incoming units overlap for a period, a senior
U.S. officer said Thursday.

General:
Quick Strikes Planned in Iraq
17 Aug 2007 The No. 2 American commander in Iraq said Friday that occupation
forces are planning "quick strike raids" aimed at smashing 'al-Qaida'
and other 'insurgents' in far-flung parts of the country before the
U.S. brings some of its buildup troops home.

Son
of anti-war presidential candidate prepares for deployment to Iraq
16 Aug 2007 The son of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is
preparing for deployment to Iraq. The candidate is a Senate critic of
U.S. policy in Iraq. Capt. Beau Biden, a Judge Advocate General in the
Delaware National Guard and the state's attorney general, is part of
the 261st Signal Brigade that has been told to prepare for duty in Iraq
in 2008.

U.S.
attacks kill 13 in Iraq battle
17 Aug 2007 U.S. aircraft and army snipers killed 13 gunmen north of
Baghdad on Friday in fierce fighting that erupted as troops closed in
to capture an al Qaeda cell leader, the U.S. military said.

Department
of Defence muzzles civilian MDs --Publication of article
describing soldier's death in Afghanistan prompts DND to warn physicians
not to release 'sensitive' information 16 Aug 2007 Stung by the
publication of a magazine article by one of its doctors that includes
the graphic description of the death of a Canadian soldier in Afghanistan,
the Department of National Defence has changed its contracts with civilian
physicians, warning them not to release sensitive information and to
respect patient confidentiality.

Pentagon
Paid $998,798 to Ship Two 19-Cent Washers 16 Aug 2007 A small
South Carolina parts supplier [C&D Distributors in Lexington] collected
about $20.5 million over six years from the Pentagon for fraudulent
shipping costs, including $998,798 for sending two 19-cent washers to
an Army base in Texas, U.S. officials said. The company also billed
and was paid $455,009 to ship three machine screws costing $1.31 each
to Marines in Habbaniyah, Iraq, and $293,451 to ship an 89-cent split
washer to Patrick Air Force Base in Cape Canaveral, Florida, Pentagon
records show.

Short
of Purple Hearts, Navy tells vet to buy own 16 Aug 2007 Korean
War veteran Nyles Reed, 75, opened an envelope last week to learn a
Purple Heart had been approved for injuries he sustained as a Marine
on June 22, 1952. But there was no medal. Just a certificate and a form
stating that the medal was "out of stock." The form letter from the
Navy Personnel Command told Reed he could wait 90 days and resubmit
an application, or buy his own medal.

Ex-Marine
Charged in Fallujah Deaths 17 Aug 2007 A former Marine sergeant
has been charged with voluntary manslaughter in the killings of two
captured Iraqi insurgents in Fallujah in 2004. Jose Nazario, 27, faces
10 years in prison if convicted of voluntary manslaughter, said Assistant
U.S. Attorney Jerry Behnke.

Russia
resumes strategic air space patrolling 18 Aug 2007 For the first
time since the collapse of Soviet Union 16 years ago, Russia has resumed
regular patrolling of air space by its strategic bombers in the remote
parts of the world, President Vladimir Putin said on Friday.

Army
Reports Brass, Not Bloggers, Breach Security By Noah Shachtman
17 Aug 2007 For years, the military has been warning that soldiers'
blogs could pose a security threat by leaking sensitive wartime information.
But a series of online audits,
conducted
by the Army, suggests that official Defense Department websites post
material far more potentially harmful than anything found on a individual's
blog.

Notes
Describe Frail, Upset AG Ashcroft 17 Aug 2007 The White House
demanded in 2004 that the Justice Department approve a secret national
security program without allowing the ailing attorney general, "feeble,
barely articulate, clearly stressed," to discuss the matter
with top advisers, according to the FBI director's personal notes. The
partially censored notes from FBI chief Robert S. Mueller, dated March
12, 2004, describe a distraught and feeble Attorney General John Ashcroft
in his hospital room just moments after being visited by then-White
House counsel Alberto Gonzales and Andy Card, the president's chief
of staff at the time.

FBI
Director's Notes Contradict Gonzales's Version of Ashcroft Visit
17 Aug 2007 Then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft was "feeble," "barely
articulate" and "stressed" moments after a hospital room confrontation
in March 2004 with Alberto R. Gonzales, who wanted Ashcroft to approve
a warrantless wiretapping program over Justice Department objections,
according to notes from FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III that were
released yesterday. One of Mueller's entries in five pages of a daily
log pertaining to the dispute also indicated that Ashcroft's deputy
was so concerned about undue pressure by Gonzales and other White House
aides for the attorney general to back the wiretapping program that
the deputy asked Mueller to bar anyone other than relatives from later
entering Ashcroft's hospital room.

Bush
Signs Spy Bill In the Spirit of Hitler's Third Reich By Edward
Spannaus 17 Aug 2007 In explicit violation of the Fourth Amendment to
the U.S. Constitution, the Administration can now monitor Americans'
calls and e-mails, without a warrant, so long as there is some claimed
connection to a person "reasonably believed to be located outside the
United States..." That program, it is well-established, was run by Vice
President [sic] Dick Cheney. It was Cheney and his lawyer David Addington
who pushed hardest for the spy program in the weeks after 9/11, using
their "Schmittlerian" legal theories (modelled on Hitler's 'Crown Jurist"
Carl Schmitt) to argue that the President could ignore existing laws
and make his own... Even more dangerous, Congress acceded to a new Hitler-like
power grab by the Bush-Cheney White House, allowing it to ride roughshod
over Congress and the courts in a manner reminiscent of Carl Schmitt's
doctrine of imposing emergency rule in a time of crisis.

Phone
customers, charity challenge U.S. wiretapping 16 Aug 2007 Justice
Department attorneys attempted to persuade three federal appellate court
judges Wednesday to dismiss two major lawsuits challenging the Bush
regime's warrantless domestic-eavesdropping program. Interest was so
high in the unusual joint hearing that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals provided two rooms for overflow spectators.

Federal
ID plan raises privacy concerns
17 Aug 2007 Americans may need passports to board domestic flights or
to picnic in a national park next year if they live in one of the states
defying the federal Real ID Act. The act, signed in 2005 as part
of an emergency military spending and tsunami
relief bill, aims to weave driver's licenses and state ID
cards into a sort of national identification system by May 2008. The
Real ID Act requires all 245 million license and state ID holders to
visit their local departments of motor vehicles and apply for a Real
ID by 2013. [Of course, the DemocRATs rolled right over on this one!
See also: ACLU's 'Real
Nightmare.']

Smile
… Or Else --'Behavior Detection Officers' are now watching
passengers' facial expressions for signs of danger. It's a new level
of absurdity for America. By Patti Davis 16 Aug 2007 It was bound
to happen. Now even a frown or grimace can get you into trouble with
The Man. "Specially
trained security personnel" will be watching passengers for
"micro-expressions" that will reveal treacherous agendas and
insidious intentions at airports around the country. These agents, who
may literally hold your fate in their hands have been given a lofty,
Orwellian name: "Behavior Detection Officers." Did anyone ever doubt
that George Orwell’s prophecies in "1984" would arrive?

How
lawyer navigates sea of secrecy in bizarre case--Among the
obstacles: responding to a filing he can't see and writing a brief with
none of his notes at hand. 15 Aug 2007 Oakland lawyer Jon Eisenberg
calls the case of Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation v. George W. Bush the
strangest he has ever handled. How strange? Eisenberg was required to
write one of his briefs in a windowless government office, without notes
or lawbooks, under the watchful eye of two federal security guards.
When he got hungry, one of the guards brought him a banana. And when
he finished, a security official shredded all his drafts — and even
the banana peel, Eisenberg said. The brief-writing session was just
one facet of the extraordinary secrecy surrounding the Al-Haramain case,
Eisenberg said. Al-Haramain is one of dozens of plaintiffs across the
nation that have filed suit, claiming they were illegally spied on by
the government as part of the war on [of] terror.

US
citizen guilty of aiding al-Qaida cells 16 Aug 2007 Jose Padilla,
a former Chicago 'gang member' [?] who converted to Islam, was today
found guilty of helping terrorists orchestrate attacks on American targets
in a range of countries over the past decade. He and two co-defendants,
Adham Hassoun, a Lebanese-born Palestinian, and Kifah Jayyousi, a naturalised
US citizen from Jordan, were charged with providing material support
for Islamist terrorist groups and conspiring to "murder, kidnap and
maim" people in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Bosnia and other countries from
1993 to 2001. [OMFG -- and Bush hasn't
been convicted yet of same?!? --LRP]

Al-Qaeda
cell guilty of terrorism but not of 'dirty bomb' 17 Aug 2007
Jose Padilla, the US citizen once accused by the Bush Administration
of planning to detonate a "dirty bomb" in an American city,
was convicted on terrorism charges last night. However, all the radioactive
bomb charges had been dropped last year.

How
U.S. Interrogators Destroyed the Mind of Jose Padilla
By Amy Goodman 17 Aug 2007 Jose Padilla has been found guilty in court
and faces possible life in prison, but forensic psychiatrist Dr. Angela
Hegarty explains after interviewing him that Padilla already paid the
ultimate price through torture -- he's lost his mind. [Democracy Now!
interviews Dr. Angela Hegarty.]

A
travesty of justice: Jose Padilla found guilty By Joe Kay 17
Aug 2007 A Miami, Florida jury found US prisoner Jose Padilla guilty
Thursday on three terrorism-related counts... The verdict is a travesty
of justice and a testament to the growth of police state measures and
the advanced state of decay of democratic rights in the United States...
The Kafkaesque treatment that Padilla has suffered is a warning to all
Americans. Such are the conditions that can be meted out to anyone—whether
a US citizen or not. According to the legal theory developed by the
administration, constitutional rights must be sacrificed in the name
of "security" in the "war on terror."

CIA
in web claims
17 Aug 2007 The CIA has been accused of editing entries on the interactive
encyclopedia Wikipedia. Wikipedia Scanner, an online tool, allegedly
shows that workers on the agency's computers
edited the page of Iran's president, the BBC reported.

CIA,
FBI computers 'editing Wikipedia' 17 Aug 2007 People using CIA
and FBI computers have edited entries in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia
on topics including the Iraq war and the Guantanamo prison, according
to a new tracing program. The changes may violate Wikipedia's conflict
of interest guidelines, a spokeswoman for the site said.

Climate
change demonstrations spread to two more airports 17 Aug 2007
The environmental campaign against air travel moved towards a more confrontational
phase and spread outside the climate-change camp at Heathrow yesterday
as small groups of protesters launched simultaneous demonstrations against
two airports in the South-east.

Feds
Pay $80,000 Over Anti-Bush T-Shirts 17 Aug 2007 A couple arrested
at a rally after refusing to cover T-shirts that bore anti-President
[sic] Bush slogans settled their lawsuit against the federal government
for $80,000, the American Civil Liberties Union announced Thursday.

No
buyer for voting machine unit 16 Aug 2007 US cash dispenser
and security company Diebold has admitted that it has failed to find
a buyer for its troubled electronic voting machine business. Diebold
and other manufacturers of such voting machines have been hit by criticism
that they are unreliable and vulnerable to tampering.

Snow
to leave White House before Bush 17 Aug 2007 White House press
secretary Tony Snow said Friday he'll leave sometime before the end
of the Bush presidency because of financial pressures. The 52-year-old
Snow earns $168,000 as an assistant to the president [sic], but made
considerably more as a conservative pundit and syndicated talk-show
host on Fox News Radio.

Mine
rescue effort in Utah halted indefinitely --Officials will
reassess their bracing methods after a 'seismic bump' leaves 3 searchers
dead. 17 Aug 2007 A federal official said today that the rescue
effort at Crandall Canyon Mine near Huntington, Utah, was suspended
indefinitely after a "seismic bump" exploded with "tremendous force"
last night, overwhelming interior ground support and burying a rescue
team, killing at least three.

Three
rescuers killed as Utah mine caves in 17 Aug 2007 Three of the
rescuers attempting to find six workers trapped in a Utah mine since
last week have been killed following a cave-in, officials said on Thursday.
Additionally, six rescuers were injured, said Tammy Kikuchi, a spokeswoman
with Utah's Department of Natural Resources.

Searching
for the Miners (The New York Times) 16 Aug 2007 It is beyond
belief that in this Information Age, when new technologies can eavesdrop
on any conversation and track people around the globe, rescue teams
have no way to communicate with the six miners trapped underground in
the Crandall Canyon Mine in Utah. Instead they are drilling holes in
the ground to where they guess the miners might be... For too long,
the Bush administration and the Republican-controlled Congress allowed
mine operators to put off making needed investments to ensure their
workers’ safety. And last year when a string of coal-mining disasters
— that killed 48 miners — forced Congress to enact new safety legislation,
it still gave companies far too much time to install communications
systems that might have helped find the Utah miners.

Bush
poised to play the bioterror card; corpora-terrorists poised to make
a *killing*:Government
secures £155m bird flu vaccines 17 Aug 2007 Britain has moved
to secure supplies of vaccines to counter a possible human influenza
pandemic sparked by bird flu, by signing deals worth £155m in total
with GlaxoSmithKline and Baxter International of the US. Under the four-year
deals, GSK and Baxter International will together supply 120 million
doses of their pandemic flu vaccines as soon as the strain is identified
[?] and made available by the World Health Organisation.

£155m
flu vaccine deal signed 16 Aug 2007 The Government has agreed
a £155.4 million contract for a flu vaccine in the event of a pandemic.
The Department of Health, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Baxter Healthcare
signed the four-year deal, which would see the firms supply a vaccine
as soon as a pandemic strain was notified by the World Health Organisation
(WHO).

US
food aid is 'wrecking' Africa, claims charity
17 Aug 2007 Now Care, one of the world's biggest charities, has announced
that it will boycott the controversial policy of selling tons of heavily
subsidised US produced food in African countries. Care wants the US
government to send money to buy food locally, rather than unwanted US
produced food. The US arm of the charity says America is causing
rather than reducing hunger with a decree that US food aid must
be sold rather than directly distributed to those facing starvation.
Critics of the policy say it also undermines African farmers' ability
to produce food, making the most vulnerable countries of the world even
more dependent on aid to avert famine.

Hurricane
Dean Strengthens to Category 3 17 Aug 2007 Hurricane Dean strengthened
into a Category 3 storm and tore through the eastern Caribbean on Friday,
ripping the roofs from a hospital and homes, and flooding buildings
with rain and seawater.

Internet
is "the new Afghanistan": NY police commissioner
15 Aug 2007 The Internet is the new battleground against Islamist extremism
because it provides ideology that could radicalize Westerners who might
then initiate home-grown attacks, New York police commissioner Raymond
Kelly said on Wednesday. "The Internet is the new Afghanistan," Kelly
said, as he released a New York Police Department (NYPD) report on the
home-grown threat of attacks by Islamist extremists. "It is the de facto
training ground. It's an area of concern."

Terror
Threat Grows Quietly, Report Warns 16 Aug 2007 The most serious
terrorist threat facing the United States cannot be seen by U.S. law
enforcement and intelligence officials, according to a report issued
yesterday by the New York City Police Department. The 90-page report,
compiled by two police counterterrorism analysts, argues that the danger
posed by homegrown radical Islamists is growing, fueled by Internet
communications and the growing global popularity of jihadist ideology.

New
York City Police Report Explores Homegrown Terrorism 16 Aug
2007 Understanding how seemingly ordinary people become radicalized
and hatch homegrown terror plots is essential for law enforcement officials
in the United States and abroad to stay one step ahead, a study released
yesterday by the New York Police Department concluded. The report’s
findings were immediately hailed by proponents of law enforcement and
some politicians, while harshly criticized by civil libertarians and
advocates for Arab-Americans.

Domestic
Use of Spy Satellites to Widen --Law Enforcement Getting
New Access to Secret Imagery 16 Aug 2007 The Bush regime has approved
a plan to expand domestic access to some of the most powerful tools
of 21st-century spycraft, giving law enforcement officials and others
the ability to view data obtained from satellite and aircraft sensors
that can see through cloud cover and even penetrate buildings and underground
bunkers. A program approved by the Office of the Director of National
Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security will allow broader
domestic use of secret overhead imagery beginning as early as this fall,
with the expectation that state and local law enforcement officials
will eventually be able to tap into technology once largely restricted
to foreign surveillance.

American
Spy Satellites to Snoop On U.S. --Department of Homeland
Security OKs Expanded Domestic Use Of Spies In the Sky 15 Aug 2007
The Wall Street Journal reports
that the Department of Homeland Security has approved a measure to allow
federal civilian agencies and law enforcement to turn American spy satellites
on their own citizens for the first time. Until now, the highly sensitive
satellites were aimed mostly at other countries, usually ones we didn't
really trust... Letting domestic security folks use them to spy is,
the Journal says, "uncharted territory."

$iccing
the Cops --NYPD Giving 'Aggressive'
OT Officers More Money 13 Aug 2007 The NYPD's new patrol
chief has ordered that special overtime money earmarked for cops in
violence-prone precincts be given to "aggressive" officers rather than
"do-nothings," The Post has learned. Chief Robert Giannelli issued that
edict last week during a meeting with his borough chiefs, who then relayed
it to their precinct commanders, sources said. His order affects a pool
of funds known as Impact Overtime.

New
airport agents check for danger in fliers' facial expressions
14 Aug 2007 Next time you go to the airport, there may be more eyes
on you than you notice. Specially trained security personnel are watching
body language and facial cues of passengers for signs of bad intentions...
They're called Behavior Detection Officers,
and they're part of several recent security upgrades, Transportation
Security Administrator Kip Hawley told an aviation industry group in
Washington last month. Amy Kudwa, a TSA public affairs specialist, said
the agency hopes to have 500 behavior detection officers in place by
the end of 2008.

Congressional
Aides: W. House Seeks to Limit Petraeus, Crocker Hill Appearances
16 Aug 2007 Senior congressional aides said yesterday that the White
House has proposed limiting the much-anticipated appearance on Capitol
Hill next month of Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker
to a private congressional briefing, suggesting instead that the Bush
administration's progress report on the Iraq war should be delivered
to Congress by the secretaries of state and defense.

Petraeus
report actually to be written by White House 15 Aug 2007 According
to the officials, Gen. David H. Petraeus is expected to propose the
'partial pullback' [?] in his September status report to Congress...
Administration officials who support the current troop levels hope
Petraeus' recommendations will persuade Congress to reject pressure
for a major U.S. withdrawal. The expected recommendation would authorize
U.S. commanders to withdraw troops from places that have become less
violent and turn over security responsibilities to Iraqi forces. Despite
Bush's repeated statements that the report will reflect evaluations
by Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, administration
officials said it would actually be written by the White House,
with 'inputs' from officials throughout the government.

'Surge'
Has Led to More Detainees
--As Number in Iraq Soars, Debate on System's Fairness Continues
15 Aug 2007 U.S. military operations associated with the troop increase
in Baghdad have boosted the number of prisoners held in American facilities
in Iraq to about 23,000, up 5,000 from four months ago, according to
Army Col. Mark Martins, the top military lawyer in Iraq. The overall
number of 'security detainees' now held in Iraqi prisons to 60,000,
said Judge Abdul Satar Bayrkdar, spokesman for the Iraqi Higher Judicial
Council.

Iraqi
officials: Truck bombings killed at least 500 --Tuesday truck
bombs targeted villages of Qahtaniya, al-Jazeera and Tal Uzair, in northern
Iraq near border with Syria 16
Aug 2007 The death toll in this week's suicide bombings in northern
Iraq has risen to at least 500, local officials in Nineveh province
said Wednesday. Iraqi Army and Mosul police sources earlier put the
number at 260, but said it was likely to rise; 320 were reported wounded.

Unmanned
"Surge": 3000 More Robots for War By Noah Shachtman 13 Aug 2007
U.S. military robots ran 30,000 missions in 2006 -- hunting for, and
getting rid of, improvised explosives. Now, the military has launched
a crash project to radically increase its unmanned ground forces...
The first batch of 'bots is due September 24, Defense News' Kris
Osborn reports. 1000 machines are supposed to be enlisted by the end
of the year, with two thousand more in five years.

Shiite
militia infiltrates Iraqi forces--Radical clericMuqtada
Sadr's sectarian Mahdi Army has deep links with security forces.
16 Aug 2007 Abu Mohammed is a policeman by day, patrolling the Shiite
Muslim district of Sadr City. Come sundown, however, Abu Mohammed commands
a platoon of Jaish al Mahdi, or the Mahdi Army, a Shiite militia associated
with radical cleric Muqtada Sadr that is widely accused of sectarian
killings. By his account and those of U.S. military and Iraqi sources,
Mahdi militia members have infiltrated much of the country's security
apparatus, including the army, where they reportedly intimidate and
bribe troops and commanders to look the other way as militants execute
their brutal sectarian "cleansing" agenda.

'House
Bombs' a Growing Risk for U.S. Troops --Soldiers Being Lured
Into Buildings Rigged to Explode; Commander Cites Insurgents' 'Continually
Evolving Tactics' 16 Aug 2007 Inside the house [in Arab Jabour],
one soldier stepped on a pressure plate, detonating an estimated 30
pounds of explosives hidden under a stairwell. In an instant, four troops
were killed; four others were injured. Pfc. William L. Edwards died
later in the hospital. Military
commanders say the number of similar incidents -- those in which soldiers
are lured into a house rigged to explode -- has risen dramatically across
Iraq in recent months.

Army
suicides highest in 26 years 15 Aug 2007 Army soldiers committed
suicide last year at the highest rate in 26 years, and more than a quarter
did so while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a new military
report. The report, obtained by The Associated Press ahead of its scheduled
release Thursday, found there were 99 confirmed suicides among active
duty soldiers during 2006, up from 88 the previous year and the highest
since the 102 suicides in 1991.

Rumsfeld
resignation letter omits 'Iraq' 15 Aug 2007 The word "Iraq"
doesn't appear in former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's resignation
letter. Neither does the word "war." In fact, the deadly and much-criticized
conflict that eventually drummed him out of office, comes up only in
vague references, such as "a critical time in our history" and "challenging
time for our country," in the four-paragraph, 148-word letter he wrote
to President [sic] Bush a day before the Nov. 7, 2006 election.

US
anti-war group ordered to take down Iraq demo posters 15 Aug
2007 A US anti-war group [ANSWER Coalition] has been warned it will
be fined 10,000 dollars if it does not remove posters in Washington
announcing a march in the capital next month against US involvement
in Iraq, a spokeswoman said Wednesday.

Iran
has not started a war in over 1,000 years: German expert 15
Aug 2007 (IRNA) Iran has not started a war in over 1,000 years, a leading
German Mideast scholar and journalist said Tuesday. "The last offensive
Iranian war dates back to over 1,000 years," wrote Michael Lueders in
an analytical piece for Tuesday's edition of the Frankfurter Rundschau
newspaper. He also pointed out that contrary to US and Israeli claims
there has been no "substantiated proof" that Iran is seeking nuclear
weapons.

US
documents show Pakistan gave Taliban military aid 16 Aug 2007
The Pakistani government gave substantial military support to the Taliban
in the years leading up to the September 11 attacks, sending arms and
soldiers to fight alongside the militant Afghan movement, according
to newly released US official documents. Islamabad has acknowledged
diplomatic and economic links with the Taliban but has denied direct
military support. The US intelligence and state department documents,
released under the country's freedom of information act, show that Washington
believed otherwise.

Muslim
Groups Oppose a List of 'Co-Conspirators' 16 Aug 2007 Two prominent
Muslim American organizations took steps yesterday to reverse what they
called a Justice Department effort to smear the entire Muslim community
by naming some of its largest organizations as unindicted co-conspirators
in a Texas terrorism trial. The National Association of Muslim Lawyers,
which is not named, sent a letter to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales
objecting to the list, which it said breached the department’s own
guidelines against releasing the names of unindicted co-conspirators
and did not serve any clear law enforcement purpose. The letter,
also signed by the National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys,
said the "overreaching list" of more than 300 organizations
and individuals would further cripple charitable donations to Muslim
organizations and could ratchet up the discrimination faced by American
Muslims since the Sept. 11 attacks.

ACLU:
Patriot Act, free speech clash 15 Aug 2007 Congress does not
have the power to demand silence from people forced to turn over electronic
communications such as Internet records used to investigate terrorism,
an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer argued Wednesday. During oral
arguments in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, ACLU lawyer Jameel Jaffer
told Judge Victor Marrero he must strike down a part of the USA Patriot
Act that lets the FBI request records without the kind of court order
required of other government searches.

Appeals
court may let NSA lawsuits proceed 15 Aug 2007 A federal appeals
court on Wednesday appeared unwilling to end a pair of lawsuits that
claim the Bush administration engaged in widespread illegal surveillance
of Americans. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals repeatedly pressed
Gregory Garre, the Bush administration's deputy solicitor general, to
justify his requests to toss out the suits on grounds they could endanger
national security by possibly revealing "state secrets."

See
Who's Editing Wikipedia - Diebold, the CIA, a Campaign By John
Borland 14 Aug 2007 On November 17th, 2005, an anonymous Wikipedia user
deleted 15 paragraphs from an article on e-voting [sic] mmachine-vendor
Diebold, excising an entire section critical of the company's machines...
In this case, the changes came from an IP address reserved for the corporate
offices of Diebold itself... A new data-mining service launched Monday
traces millions of Wikipedia entries to their corporate sources.

Fired
U.S. Attorneys: Were There Others? 15 Aug 2007 Could the U.S.
Attorneys firing scandal be bigger than Americans know? For months,
the Bush administration has declined to directly answer a key question
posed by Congress: were more top federal prosecutors targeted for dismissal
beyond the nine that have been publicly identified? In a new letter
to senators who have been pushing for the answer, a Justice Department
official said only that it was contained in information shared earlier
by Justice staff in interviews with Senate aides.

FBI
probes contracts to company with ties to Stevens 16 Aug 2007
The FBI is investigating the National Science Foundation's award of
$170 million in contracts to the oil field services company that oversaw
renovations on U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens' home, McClatchy Newspapers has
learned.

Former
Ney aide gets no prison time 16 Aug 2007 A former Capitol Hill
aide received probation and a fine but no jail time Thursday after a
federal judge credited him with helping the Justice Department convict
a congressman in the Jack Abramoff scandal. William Heaton let FBI agents
record his telephone calls and taped a 2 1/2-hour meeting with Rep.
Bob Ney, R-Ohio.

Wal-Mart
to pay $3.9 mln in back pay in California 14 Aug 2007 Wal-Mart
Stores Inc. has agreed to pay more than $3.9 million to about 50,000
current and former employees in California who were underpaid overtime
and other wages, the state's labor commissioner said on Tuesday. The
world's largest retailer also agreed to pay $198,900 in civil penalties
to the state, Labor Commissioner Angela Bradstreet said in a statement.

Canadian
team discovers gene that turns cancers off 13 Aug 2007 A unique
gene that can stop cancerous cells from multiplying into tumours has
been discovered by a team of scientists at the B.C. Cancer Agency in
Vancouver. The team, led by Dr. Poul Sorensen, says the gene has the
power to suppress the growth of human tumours in multiple cancers, including
breast, lung and liver. [Hopefully, Sorensen will not be 'Wellstoned'
by the US pharma-terrorists, who make a *killing* on 'treating' cancer.]

*****

Bush
Administration Says Warrantless Eavesdropping Cannot Be Questioned
By David Kravets 14 Aug 2007 The Bush administration said Monday
the constitutionality of its warrantless electronic eavesdropping program
cannot be challenged. The government is taking that position in
seeking the dismissal of federal court lawsuits against the government
and AT&T over its alleged involvement in the once-secret surveillance
program adopted after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. The strategy was
first recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court in a McCarthy-era lawsuit.

U.S.
to Expand Domestic Use of Spy Satellites 15 Aug 2007 The U.S.'s
top intelligence official has greatly expanded the range of federal
and local authorities who can get access to information from the nation's
vast network of spy satellites in the U.S. The decision, made three
months ago by Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell, places
for the first time some of the U.S.'s most powerful intelligence-gathering
tools at the disposal of domestic security officials.

Heads
up!Army
chiefs from 19 nations in secret Sydney meet 14 Aug 2007 Army
chiefs from 19 nations, including the United States, Japan, Indonesia
and Malaysia held a secret meeting in Sydney in the lead-up to an Asia-Pacific
summit, Australia's top soldier said on Tuesday.

US
to Designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard as Terrorists 15 Aug
2007 The United States has decided to designate Iran's Revolutionary
Guard Corps, the country's 125,000-strong elite military branch, as
a "specially designated global terrorist," according to U.S. officials,
a move that allows Washington to target the group's business operations
and finances. The Revolutionary Guard would be the first national military
branch included on the list, U.S. officials said -- a highly unusual
move because it is part of a government, rather than a typical non-state
terrorist organization.

Rumsfeld
resigned before election, letter shows --GOPers say pre-election
announcement might have saved some party seats 15 Aug 2007 Donald
Rumsfeld, architect of the unpopular Iraq war [and war criminal], resigned
as defense secretary before last year's November election but his decision
was not announced until after the voting, according to his resignation
letter obtained by Reuters on Wednesday.

U.S.
general says 15-month Army rotations in Iraq, Afghanistan, to continue
into next summer
14 Aug 2007 U.S. soldiers deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan will be
facing the extended 15-month deployments until at least next June, a
top Army commander said Tuesday. Commanders are assessing the situation
on the ground now, but Gen. Richard Cody, the Army Vice Chief of Staff,
said it will take until at least June to shrink average deployments
back to 12 months while maintaining the 158,000 troops now deployed
in the region. "It's going to take a while to get off the 15 months,"
he said in an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday.

At
least 250 Iraqis killed in war's deadliest attack 15 Aug 2007
Rescuers uncovered dozens of bodies in the wreckage of clay houses in
northwest Iraq on Wednesday, sending the death toll from suicide truck
bombings of a small Kurdish sect to at least 250 — the war's deadliest
attack on a single area.

Rescuers
dig for victims after bloody Iraq blasts --Official raises
death toll from attacks to at least 250 15 Aug 2007 Tuesday’s four
suicide truck bombers struck nearly simultaneously... Some 300 people
were wounded in the attacks on the Yazidis, an ancient religious community,
said Dakhil Qassim, the mayor of the nearby town of Sinjar. Qassim said
the four trucks approached the town of Qahataniya, 75 miles west of
Mosul, from dirt roads and all exploded within minutes of each other.
He said the casualty toll was expected to rise. "We are still
digging with our hands and shovels because we can’t use cranes because
many of the houses were built of clay," Qassim said. "We are
expecting to reach the final death toll tomorrow or day after tomorrow
as we are getting only pieces of bodies."

US
army detaining about 750 Iraqi children 15 Aug 2007 Military
officials said that the American occupation army arrested 750 children,
aged between 11 to 17 years, in its prisons in Iraq. The American army
had detained, as of February, approximately 16 thousand people. Since
that time, the number of detains in American prisons increased to 50%
to nearly 24 thousand prisoners.

Indianapolis
Marine charged in Iraqi's murder
15 Aug 2007 A Marine reservist from Indiana has been charged with murdering
an Iraqi army soldier in Fallujah, an attorney said Tuesday. Lance Cpl.
Delano Holmes, 21, of Indianapolis, is accused of stabbing Munther Jasem
Muhammed Hassin to death as the two men stood watch at a security post
on Dec. 31, 2006, Holmes' lawyer said.

Crackdown
on corrupt Iraq contracts yields record caseload15 Aug 2007
A federal crackdown on corruption involving U.S. contracts in Iraq produced
a record number of criminal and administrative cases last month — including
the largest bribery case. The flurry of activity resulted from investigations
overseen by a Justice Department task force set up last fall to target
corruption in the $44.5 billion
Iraq reconstruction program.

Three
German police killed in Afghan blast 15 Aug 2007 Three senior
German police officers charged with protecting the country's ambassador
were killed and one was wounded in a roadside bomb near the Afghan capital
Kabul on Wednesday, German and Afghan officials said.

AP
Fact Check: Obama on Afghanistan 14 Aug 2007 Democrat Barack
Obama said it, the Republican Party pointed out in a screaming headline
Tuesday that highlighted the presidential candidate's comments on Afghanistan
and the killing of civilians. A check of the facts shows that Western
forces have been killing civilians at a faster rate than the insurgents
have been killing civilians. The U.S. and NATO say they don't have
civilian casualty figures, but The Associated Press has been keeping
count based on figures from Afghan and international officials... As
of Aug. 1, the AP count shows that while militants killed 231 civilians
in attacks in 2007, Western forces killed 286.

Obama's
comments on Afghanistan draw sharp rebuke from Romney campaign
14 Aug 2007 Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama came under
fire Tuesday for saying that U.S. troops in Afghanistan are "just air-raiding
villages and killing civilians." The junior senator from Illinois made
the comment
Monday at a campaign stop in Nashua, New Hampshire. The comment drew
a rebuke Tuesday from the campaign of Republican presidential candidate
[sociopath] Mitt Romney.

US
not considering draft: Pentagon 13 Aug 2007 The Pentagon sharply
rejected Monday a key general's assertion that a return to the military
draft has always been "an option on the table" and should be considered.

UK
blocks Israel arms deals 14 Aug 2007 The British government
has blocked almost one third of British military exports to Israel this
year, citing possible threats to regional stability and fears the equipment
might facilitate human rights violations.

Children's
zoo in foot-and-mouth scare as new exclusion zones set up 15
Aug 2007 A theme park zoo was last night at the centre of one of two
new food-and-mouth disease control zones amid concern that measures
in England to contain the outbreak have failed. Tests are being carried
out on a sick sheep at Chessington World of Adventures, near Epsom,
Surrey. It is outside the 10km surveillance zone imposed in the area
earlier this month.

NYPD
Warns of Homegrown Terror Threat 15 Aug 2007 Average citizens
who quietly band together and adopt 'radical ways' pose a mounting threat
to American security that could exceed that of established terrorist
groups like al-Qaida [al-CIAduh], a new police analysis has concluded.

U.S.
Studying Two Dozen 'Clusters' of Possible Homegrown Terrorists
15 Aug 2007 U.S. law enforcement officials say they have identified
more than two dozen "clusters" of young Muslim men in the northeast
United States who are on a path that could lead to homegrown terror,
ABC News has learned... The NYPD report cites at least 10 well-known
recent cases where local authorities, the FBI and European police and
intelligence agencies have thwarted plots developed either wholly or
in a very large part by homegrown "actors," with little or no support
from al Qaeda [al-CIAduh].

'Smear
campaign' angers protesters around Heathrow 15 Aug 2007 Campaigners
against climate change at Heathrow airport insisted yesterday that they
were the victims of a media smear campaign over reports that they planned
to bring the airport to a standstill by using hoax bomb threats. A spokesman
for the camp, where protesters are planning to spend the next week on
the site of a proposed third runway, accused the airport operator BAA
of being behind media reports branding them extremists bent on paralysing
the airport.

Irate
Airline Passengers Threaten to Sue --Passengers Said Plane
Was Without Food And Water 14 Aug 2007 Dozens of outraged airplane
passengers are threatening to sue Continental Airlines, claiming they
were left stranded on a plane and grounded for hours in hellish conditions.
Because of bad weather, Continental's July 19 Flight 1669 from Caracas,
Venezuela, to Newark, N.J., was diverted to Baltimore-Washington International
Airport, where it landed at 1:50 p.m... At 6:30 p.m., homeland
security officers finally allowed passengers to exit the
plane, but their troubles didn't end. The officers led them into a room,
where they were held for two additional hours. "We were removed from
the plane and were forced to walk single file against the wall, flanked
by armed officers one of whom had an attack dog," passenger
Caroline Murray said.

Danger
Signs at Crandall Canyon Mine Raised Five Months Ago By Mike
Hall 14 Aug 2007 Danger signs surfaced five months ago about the Utah
coal mine where six miners have been trapped for more than a week, the
Salt Lake City Tribunereports.
Mine safety experts also are questioning
approval by the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration of retreat
mining at the Crandall Canyon Mine. And last week, CNN.com reported
that miners there were concerned about safety but feared reprisals if
they spoke out. On Sunday, the Tribunereported
on a memo it had obtained that: …shows that mine owners were trying
to work around "poor roof conditions" before halting mining
of the northern tunnels in early March after a "large bump occurred…resulting
in heavy damage" in those tunnels... The memo was prepared by a
mining engineering firm hired by Utah American, a mining subsidiary
of Murray Energy, to study its retreat mining plans. Murray Energy,
headed by CEO
Robert Murray, owns the Crandall Canyon Mine.

New
Questions Arise About Mine Stability 14 Aug 2007 As frustration
mounts over the slow pace of the digging to free six trapped miners,
more questions arose Tuesday about whether risky mining methods may
have left parts of the coal mine dangerously unstable. Some mining companies
consider the "retreat mining" methods used at Utah's Crandall Canyon
so dangerous, they will leave behind coal rather than risk the safety
of their workers.

Bush's
lethal legacy: more executions
--The US already kills more of its prisoners than almost any other
country. Now the White House plans to cut the right of appeal of death
row inmates... 15 Aug 2007 The Bush administration is preparing
to speed up the executions of criminals who are on death row across
the United States, in effect, cutting out several layers of appeals
in the federal courts so that prisoners can be "fast-tracked" to their
deaths. The US Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales - Mr Bush's top legal
adviser during the spree of executions in Texas in the 1990s - is putting
finishing touches to regulations, inspired by recent anti-terrorism
legislation, that would allow states to turn to the Justice Department,
instead of the federal courts, as a key arbiter in deciding whether
prisoners live or die.

Hastert
Will Not Seek New Congressional Term 15 Aug 2007 Representative
J. Dennis Hastert, the Illinois Republican who became House speaker
at a moment of crisis for his party, has decided not to seek re-election
in 2008, opening a second Republican-held House seat in his home state.

Prices
for key foods are rising sharply
14 Aug 2007 The Labor Department’s most recent inflation data showed
that U.S. food prices rose by 4.1 percent for the 12 months ending in
June, but a deeper look at the numbers reveals that the price of milk,
eggs and other essentials in the American diet are actually rising by
double digits.

World
of warming--U.S.
loans hurt effort to limit climate change
(The Sacramento Bee) 15 Aug 2007 While in office, President [sic] Bush
has consistently refused to support a treaty to fight global warming.
His stated reason: The 1997 Kyoto Protocol, ratified by 169 countries,
doesn't do enough to prompt India, China and other developing nations
to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. ...[T]he United States, through
its international loan programs, was working to help countries develop
with the least possible environmental impacts. Instead, it is heading
in an opposite direction. As the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday,
the U.S. Export- Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corp.
are pumping billions of dollars into oil refineries and other fossil
fuel projects, adding to the ever-growing carbon footprint of the developing
world. U.S. financing is now helping to build
an oil refinery in Jamnagar, India, that will emit nearly
9 million metric tons of CO2 annually. It is also financing 47 other
fossil fuel projects in China, Brazil, Mexico, Turkey and other countries.

Tropical
Storm Erin Forms, Bears Down on South Texas 15 Aug 2007 Tropical
Storm Erin formed over the Gulf of Mexico today and is forecast to hit
the south Texas coast tomorrow, while another system is gaining strength
in the Atlantic Ocean and heading toward the Caribbean.

*****

Michael
Rectenwald, Ph.D., CLG Founder
and Chair, appeared on John
Gibson's Fox News radio show Tuesday 14 Aug 2007

Iraq
needs new government, says former PM Allawi 13 Aug 2007 Iraqi
former prime minister Iyad Allawi on Monday blasted the current government
for being ill-equipped to halt the slide toward all-out chaos, and urged
a nonsectarian replacement of the regime. Allawi, who once plotted a
CIA-backed coup
against former president Saddam Hussein, is widely viewed as a darling
of US powerbrokers and has relentlessly portrayed himself as a secular
strongman [dictator] capable of reuniting the country.

Giuliani
says U.S. will need long presence in Iraq 14 Aug 2007 U.S. troops
will likely be fighting in Iraq when the next president takes office
in 2009 and some U.S. forces will need to stay there to deter regional
threats, Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani said on Tuesday.

U.S.
launches major new offensive in Iraq 14 Aug 2007 U.S. forces
launched a big offensive in Iraq with an airborne assault targeting
al Qaeda [al-CIAduh] guerrillas on Tuesday, part of a major new countrywide
push.

At
least 175 killed in north Iraq bombings: army 14 Aug 2007 At
least 175 people were killed when three suicide bombers driving fuel
tankers attacked residential compounds home to the ancient minority
Yazidi sect in northern Iraq on Tuesday, an Iraqi army captain said.
Captain Mohammad al-Jaad said at least another 200 people were wounded
in the bombings in the Kahtaniya, al-Jazeera and Tal Uzair areas near
the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar, close to the Syrian border.

5
dead, a dozen missing in Iraq bridge bombing 14 Aug 2007 A suicide
bomber detonated a truckload of explosives on a key bridge north of
the Iraqi capital today, plunging the concrete span and at least three
vans packed with passengers into the murky waters of a wide canal linking
the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Police said at least five people were
killed and a dozen were missing.

Five
U.S. personnel killed in Iraq helicopter crash 14 Aug 2007 Five
U.S. service personnel were killed when a military transport helicopter
crashed during a routine flight west of Baghdad on Tuesday. The crash
takes the death toll for the U.S. military to 10 in the past two days.

Soldier:
Sergeant beat Iraq detainee with bat --Soldier also said
he assaulted another prisoner when goaded by sergeant 13 Aug 2007
A soldier testified Monday that he saw a sergeant beat an Iraqi detainee
with a baseball bat, then himself assaulted another detainee when goaded
by the sergeant. Spc. Angel M. Bonilla was the first witness at Sgt.
1st Class Timothy L. Drake’s court-martial for the alleged beating and
an attempted cover-up.

ABA
targets CIA methods, secrets law --The lawyers' group wants
Congress to override a Bush order allowing 'enhanced' interrogation
methods. 14 Aug 2007 The American Bar Assn. voted Monday to urge
Congress to override a Bush administration order authorizing the CIA
to use interrogation techniques such as waterboarding, and sensory and
sleep deprivation. The nation's largest lawyers' organization also called
on Congress to give federal judges more oversight of government efforts
to use the "state secrets" doctrine to throw out legal challenges to
'anti'-terrorism programs.

Police
on alert at Heathrow camp 14 Aug 2007 Hundreds of climate demonstrators
set up a tent camp next to Heathrow airport on Monday and threatened
"direct action" at the world's busiest air hub to protest against global
warming. Police with batons were on alert at the field where the camp
is based, within one kilometre of the airport complex.

Protest
to mark early Bush arrival 14 Aug 2007 Protest group The Stop
Bush Coalition will hold a "stunt" protest to coincide with the early
arrival of US President [sic] George Bush into Sydney for the Asian-Pacific
Economic Co-operation summit. President Bush will arrive on the evening
of Tuesday 4 September and leave before the end of the APEC summit.

General
Strike In USA on Sept. 11, 2007 --GENERAL STRIKE IN USA on
Sept. 11, 2007 – 9/11 "No School * No Work * No Shopping. Hit
the Streets" By Michael Collins 13 Aug 2007 A general strike is
proposed for the United States on September 11, 2007, the sixth anniversary
of the 9/11/2001 attacks on New York City and Arlington, Virginia. The
general strike movement has no clearly named leadership.

Al
Qaeda Videos May Be Doctored 13 Aug 2007 A computer expert has
conducted extensive image analysis on many of the al Qaeda [al-CIAduh]
propaganda videos and concluded that in many cases, the tapes were likely
doctored to give a false impression of the speaker's location. Neal
Krawetz, founder of Hacker Factor, a computer security and consulting
firm, created a computer program which he uses to analyze screen frames
from various al Qaeda videos, including those of al Qaeda No. 2 Ayman
al Zawahri and American al Qaeda commander Adam Gadahn [aka CIA agent,
Adam Pearlman]. His software suggests that in many cases the sophisticated
backgrounds were likely added after the video of the speaker was recorded...
News commentators at the time remarked on how Zawahri, who many assumed
to be hiding in a cave, was able to record a video message from a high-tech
newsroom. Krawetz, however, says that background was very likely
added after Zawahri filmed his message. "That's the fakest one so
far," said Krawetz. Krawetz found six different layers on one JPEG
from that video, implying the various background components were very
likely added after Zawahri recorded his message...

U.S.
cooperator pleads guilty to terrorism charges in Manhattan 13
Aug 2007 An American credited with playing a key part in a probe of
an Oregon terror training camp pleaded guilty to terrorism charges Monday,
admitting his role in the plot after his violation of a previous plea
agreement let the government bring more serious charges against him.

Gonzales
could get say in states' executions --Proposed rules would
let the attorney general sign off on 'fast tracking' death penalty appeals.
14 Aug 2007 The Justice Department is putting the final touches on regulations
that could give Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales important new sway over
death penalty cases in California and other states, including the power
to shorten the time that death row inmates have to appeal convictions
to federal courts. The rules implement a little-noticed
provision in last year's reauthorization of the Patriot Act
that gives the attorney general the power to decide whether individual
states are providing adequate counsel for defendants in death penalty
cases. The authority has been held by federal judges.

Lawsuits
May Illuminate Methods of Spy Program 14 Aug 2007 In 2003, Room
641A of a large telecommunications building in downtown San Francisco
was filled with powerful data-mining equipment for a "special job" by
the National Security Agency, according to a former AT&T technician.
It was fed by fiber-optic cables that siphoned copies of e-mails and
other online traffic from one of the largest Internet hubs in the United
States, the former employee says in court filings. What occurred in
the room is now at the center of a pivotal legal battle in a federal
appeals court over the Bush regime's controversial spying program, including
the monitoring that came to be publicly known as the Terrorist Surveillance
Program. Tomorrow, a three-judge panel will hear arguments on whether
the case, which may provide the clearest indication yet of how the spying
program has worked, can go forward.

I
Know What You Did Last Summer By Jonathan Alter 11 Aug 2007
I hate to sound melodramatic about it, but while everyone was at the
beach or "The Simpsons Movie" on the first weekend in August, the U.S.
government shredded the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, the one
requiring court-approved "probable cause" before Americans can be searched
or spied upon... It's the plain truth of where we've come as a country,
at the behest of a president [sic] who has betrayed his oath to defend
the Constitution and with the acquiescence of Democratic congressional
leaders who know better.

Learn
from the fall of Rome, US warned 14 Aug 2007 The US government
is on a ‘burning platform’ of unsustainable policies and practices with
fiscal deficits, chronic healthcare underfunding, immigration and overseas
military commitments threatening a crisis if action is not taken soon,
the country’s top government inspector has warned. David Walker, comptroller
general of the US, issued the unusually downbeat assessment of his country’s
future in a report that lays out what he called "chilling long-term
simulations".

5
Reporters Ordered to Testify About Government Sources 14 Aug
2007 Five reporters must testify about their law enforcement sources
in a former Army scientist’s lawsuit against the Justice Department,
a federal judge in Washington ruled yesterday. The suit, filed by Steven
J. Hatfill, a bioterrorism expert, contends that the government violated
the federal Privacy Act by providing journalists with information about
him in the F.B.I.’s investigation of the deadly [Cheney] anthrax mailings
in 2001.

Venezuela
to create oil services company, 'our own Halliburton' 14 Aug
2007 Venezuela is creating its own oil-field services company to reduce
dependence on foreign contractors. The nation's top energy official,
Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez, said today that the state-run oil company
is starting its own version of Houston-based oil-field services company
Halliburton to provide services within the oil-producing country.

Katrina
Aid Goes Toward Football Condos 13 Aug 2007 With large swaths
of the Gulf Coast still in ruins from Hurricane Katrina, rich federal
tax breaks designed to spur rebuilding are flowing hundreds of miles
inland to investors who are buying up luxury condos near the University
of Alabama's football stadium. About 10 condominium projects are going
up in and around Tuscaloosa, and builders are asking up to $1 million
for units with granite countertops, king-size bathtubs and 'Bama decor,
including crimson couches and Bear Bryant wall art.

'Bush's
brain' steps down [Yes, but we need all the other parts to step
down, too.] 14 Aug 2007 He's been known as President [sic] George
Bush's brain. But it seems the President will need to get through the
last 18 months of his presidency without him. Karl Rove, President Bush's
longtime political adviser, announced overnight he is resigning as White
House deputy chief of staff effective August 31 and returning to Texas,
marking a turning point for the Bush p_Residency.

Cécilia
Sarkozy 'too sick' for Bush picnic ... but not for shopping
14 Aug 2007 The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, on holiday in the
US, attended an informal family picnic at George Bush's retreat in Maine
on Saturday, sharing burgers in the name of Franco-US relations. But
his wife, Cécilia, was unexpectedly absent, blaming a severe throat
ailment that prevented her making the one-hour trip from the Sarkozys'
rented villa in New Hampshire. But the fact that Mrs Sarkozy was spotted
shopping with friends on both Friday and Sunday raised eyebrows in France.

Romney
worth as much as $250 million 14 Aug 2007 Republican presidential
candidate Mitt Romney's vast wealth is spread over a dizzying array
of foreign and domestic investments that at times have been sold to
avoid conflicts with his public stances, the trustee of his blind trust
said Monday. Romney and his wife, Ann, hold assets worth between $190
million and $250 million, his advisers said.

Romney
portfolio has link to Sudan --The GOP candidate's trustee
has recently sold other potentially controversial holdings. 14 Aug
2007 Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney divested from companies
doing business in Iran, but he still holds stock in an oil company that
does business in Sudan -- where the government is accused of sponsoring
genocide -- his financial disclosure report filed Monday shows. Romney,
the wealthiest presidential contender, is worth $190 million to $250
million, with investments spread among stocks, treasuries and high-end
funds.

Wolfowitz
'tried to censor World Bank on climate change' 14 Aug 2007 The
Bush regime has consistently thwarted efforts by the World Bank to include
global warming in its calculations when considering whether to approve
major investments in industry and infrastructure, according to documents
made public through a watchdog yesterday. On one occasion, the White
House's pointman at the bank, the now disgraced Paul Wolfowitz, personally
intervened to remove the words "climate change" from the title of a
bank progress report and ordered changes to the text of the report to
shift the focus away from global warming.

*****

Bush
to bolster Iraq troop surge as antiwar lobby gives ground 13
Aug 2007 President [sic] Bush plans to continue his Iraq troop surge
well into next year after a string of positive reports [?] left Democrats
increasingly powerless to end the war. Mr Bush, bolstered by growing
public support for the surge [?] and recent admissions from war critics
that military gains have been made, has begun a campaign to talk up
the strategy before General David Petraeus’s critical progress report
next month.

Iraq
PM calls crisis conference for government --U.S. announces
new offensive against extremists 13 Aug 2007 Iraq’s prime minister
called a crisis conference in a bid to open a dialogue Tuesday among
Iraq’s divided factions, shore up his shaky government and move the
stalled political process. The U.S. military, meanwhile, pressed its
crackdown on violence, announcing a new offensive against extremists
on both sides of the sectarian divide — an operation called Phantom
Strike to build on the successes during recent offensives in Baghdad
and surrounding areas.

U.S.
forces launch new offensive in Iraq 13 Aug 2007 U.S. and Iraqi
forces launched an offensive against al Qaeda [al-CIAduh] and "Iranian-supported"
[?] Shi'ite militants across Iraq on Monday in anticipation of an expected
surge in violence. U.S. commanders fear militants will step up attacks
on U.S. soldiers or launch a "spectacular" attack on civilians
to try to influence the debate over the war in Washington, where a keenly
awaited 'progress' report on the new U.S. military strategy in Iraq
is due to be presented to Congress in September. [The US launches
'spectacular' attacks on civilians *every day.*]

10
electricity workers killed, injured in U.S. shelling southern Samarra
13 Aug 2007 Eight electricity workers were killed and two others wounded
when a U.S. aircraft fired at their vehicle in southern Samarra's neighborhood
of al-Jalisiya, a local police source said on Saturday. The
workers were installing electricity wires and cables in al-Jalisiya
power station when a U.S. aircraft fired a rocket at their vehicle,
the source told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI). [The
US continues to destroy Iraq's infrastructure, so that Halliburton and
KBR (and other Bush-friendly contractors) can get paid to 'rebuild'
that which they destroyed.]

Iraq
Contractors Accused in Shootings
11 Aug 2007 There are now nearly as many private contractors in Iraq
as there are U.S. soldiers - and a large percentage of them are private
security guards equipped with automatic weapons, body armor, helicopters
and bullet-proof trucks. They operate with little or no supervision,
accountable only to the firms employing them. This private army has
been accused of indiscriminately firing at American and Iraqi troops,
and of shooting to death an unknown number
of Iraqi citizens.

US
Army debuts armed ground robot in Iraq 13 Aug 2007 The US Army
recently debuted the first armed unmanned ground system (UGS) in Iraq,
marking a new milestone for unmanned systems. The Special Weapons Observation
Remote reconnaissance Direct action System (SWORDS) is a version of
the Foster Miller 3B robot that is outfitted with the Telepresent Rapid
Aiming Platform (TRAP) remotely operated weapon station made by Precision
Remotes.

U.S.
market seen for Iraqi-made clothes 13 Aug 2007 Iraqi and American
officials think Iraq's ailing economy could get a kick-start from American
consumers interested in giving Iraqi-made clothes as Christmas presents.
Deputy industry minister Sami Al-Araji said an American team led by
Paul A. Brinkley, the deputy under secretary of defense for business
transformation in Iraq, was in discussions with major American retailers
like Sears and Wal-Mart
to have the clothing on sale in a limited number of major cities by
the holiday season. [Gee, I wonder the same slave
labor the US uses for its embassy will be forced to make the clothes?]

US
attorney general in Baghdad [Why? To instruct Bush's puppet dictatorship
how to carry out as many war crimes as possible?] 12 Aug 2007 US
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has visited Baghdad for talks with
US and Iraqi officials on his third visit to Iraq. He was met by US
General David Petraeus, the multinational force commander in Iraq, the
US Department of Justice (DoJ) said in a statement.

British
soldier killed in southern Afghanistan
12 Aug 2007 A British soldier has been killed in an attack on his patrol
base in southern Afghanistan. The soldier, from 1st Battalion The Royal
Anglian regiment, was injured when the base in Helmand province came
under attack from small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades, the
Ministry of Defence said.

Homeless
vets: a hidden crisis 12 Aug 2007 As an infantry medic, Ryan
Svolto patched up soldiers wounded in combat in Iraq. Now, he is trying
to fix his own wounded life after a recent stint at a Daytona Beach,
Fla., homeless shelter. Svolto, 24, is one of a growing number of Iraq
and Afghanistan war veterans who joined the ranks of the homeless after
returning home. Experts say a system already buckling under one of the
nation's largest homeless populations might collapse under the weight
of a new wave of veterans, many saddled with mental-health issues and
crippling brain injuries.

Guantanamo
Five could be 'a terrorist threat to Britain' 12 Aug 2007 Five
Guantanamo Bay inmates that ministers want to bring to Britain are "extremely
dangerous" with close ties to Al Qaeda [al-CIAduh], the Pentagon has
warned. US officials disclosed details days after Gordon Brown's surprise
decision to call for their release.

US
terror interrogation went too far, experts say 13 Aug 2007 Jose
Padilla had no history of mental illness when President [sic] Bush ordered
him detained in 2002 as a suspected Al Qaeda [al-CIAduh] operative.
But he does now. The Muslim convert was subjected to prison conditions
and interrogation techniques that took him past the breaking point,
mental health experts say. Two psychiatrists and a psychologist who
conducted detailed personal examinations of Mr. Padilla on behalf of
his defense lawyers say his extended detention and interrogation at
the US Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, S.C., left him with severe
mental disabilities. All three say he may never recover.

Prosecutors
in Padilla terror trial say he was 'star recruit' for terrorism support
cell 13 Aug 2007 Jose Padilla was a "star recruit"
for a terrorism support cell that provided Muslim extremist soldiers
to fight around the globe with al-Qaeda [al-CIAduh] to create fundamentalist
Islamic regimes, prosecutors said Monday in closing arguments. The arguments
mark the end of a three-month federal trial in which prosecutors have
tried to prove that Padilla, 36, and two others provided support to
terrorists.

US
Adds Islamic Group to Blacklist 13 Aug 2007 The Bush regime
on Monday placed on its terrorism blacklist an Islamist group in Lebanon
blamed for major fighting at a Palestinian refugee camp there. The State
Department announced that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has designated
the al-Qaida[Qaeda]-inspired Fatah al-Islam... as a "specially
designated global terrorist" group under an executive order aimed
at cutting off finances to extremist organizations.

US
doles out millions for street cameras --Local efforts raise
privacy alarms 12 Aug 2007 The Department of Homeland Security is
funneling millions of dollars to local governments nationwide for purchasing
high-tech video camera networks, accelerating the rise of a "surveillance
society" in which the sense of freedom that stems from being anonymous
in public will be lost, privacy rights advocates warn. DHS will not
say how much of its taxpayer-funded grants have gone to cameras.

16-year-olds
to be support officers 13 Aug 2007 (UK) Two 16-year-olds have
been recruited as community support officers, it has been confirmed.
The teenagers are undergoing training after passing their assessments,
said a Thames Valley Police spokesman. Depending on their role, the
teenagers will have the authority to detain suspects until a police
officer arrives, issue penalty notices, deal with minor offences and
guard crime scenes.

LAX
computer failure keeps thousands of fliers detained 13 Aug 2007
Weary international passengers were stuck at Los Angeles International
Airport for hours, unable to set foot in the United States after a computer
failure prevented customs from screening arrivals. Over 20,000 international
passengers, Americans and foreigners, sat in four airport terminals
and in 60 planes starting about 2 p.m. Saturday, when the computer system
broke down, said Los Angeles World Airports spokesman Paul Haney.

KNBC
Report: LAX Computer Glitch Recurs Early Monday
13 Aug 2007 The Customs and Border Protection computer glitch that stranded
more than 20,000 inbound international travelers at Los Angeles International
Airport over the weekend recurred overnight, affecting about 1,700 inbound
international passengers between 11:50 p.m. Sunday and 1:15 a.m. Monday,
KNBC reported. The computer system helps officials identify people who
have been placed on a no-fly list and who are denied entry into the
United States as security risks.

Court
Says Travelers Can't Avoid Airport Searches
By David Kravets 10 Aug 2007 U.S. airline passengers near the security
checkpoint can be searched any time and no longer can refuse consent
by leaving the airport, the nation's largest federal appeals court ruled
Friday... Citing threats of terrorism, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals ruled
passengers give up all rights to be free of warrantless searches once
a "passenger places hand luggage on a conveyor belt for inspection"
or "passes though a magnetometer."

RF-ID
Giants Merge 09 Aug 2007 Applied
Digital Solutions, a leading provider of identification and security
technology, and Digital
Angel Corporation, which develops RF-ID for people and animals,
today announced
that they have entered into a merger agreement. Under the agreement,
Applied Digital and Digital Angel will create the world’s leading provider
of identification, location and wellness [?] monitoring systems for
people and animals.

Protesters
set up camps by Heathrow 13 Aug 2007 Thousands of people are
to join the Camp of Climate Change near Heathrow Airport to challenge
the role of Aviation industry in global warming. The camp was set up
between the villages of Sipson and Harlington today, close to London's
Heathrow.

Heathrow
protesters sneak under radar to set up camp early 13 Jul 2007
Climate-change campaigners yesterday set up a camp near Heathrow Airport
two days earlier than planned. More than 1,500 activists are expected
at the Camp for Climate Action, a week-long demonstration to highlight
the link between aviation and global warming.

Cowardly
Democrats give in to president on NSA wiretapping By Bill Press
13 Aug 2007 As they proved by their vote on the National Security Agency
wiretap legislation, when push comes to shove, Democrats would rather
fold than fight... There is no excuse - none - for Democrats to surrender
to Mr. Bush on illegal wiretapping. Doing so was a huge, cowardly, shameful
cop-out. Adding insult to injury, Democrats now insist that because,
under the new legislation, Mr. Bush's expanded spy powers expire in
six months, they'll fix everything six months from now... Once again,
Mr. Bush will plead "terror" and Democrats will cave. Our Fourth Amendment
rights could be gone forever.

Rove
to Leave White House Aug. 31
13 Aug 2007 Karl Rove, President [sic] Bush's close friend and chief
political strategist, announced Monday he will leave the White House
at the end of August, joining a lengthening line of senior officials
heading for the exits in the final 1 years of the administration.

Karl
Rove to leave White House at month's end --Bush's close friend,
chief political strategist is latest senior official to resign 13
Aug 2007 Karl Rove, President [sic] Bush's close friend and chief political
strategist, plans to leave the White House at the end of August, joining
a lengthening line of senior officials heading for the exits in the
final 1 1/2 years of the administration.

Thompson
Drops Out of GOP Presidential Race --Former Wis. Governor Finished
6th In Iowa Straw Poll 12 Aug 2007 Amid a dismal showing in the Iowa
straw poll, former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson has dropped out of
his race for the White House. His campaign has released a statement
saying the Republican is leaving the campaign trail.

Murdoch
taking aim at N.Y. Times 13 Aug 2007 Media billionaire Rupert
Murdoch has made no secret of his desire to take aim at the New York
Times once his News Corp. acquires Dow Jones & Co. and its flagship
Wall Street Journal in a $5-billion deal expected to close this fall.
Murdoch said during an earnings conference call last week that he wanted
the financial newspaper to have "more coverage of national, international
and nonbusiness news . . . all to better compete with the New York Times
and other national newspapers." In private, Murdoch has been more blunt.
"Rupert thinks the Times is vulnerable," a longtime senior executive
said. "He's going to go after them."

Record-breaking
heat in Arizona
12 Aug 2007 An excessive heat warning is in effect Monday 10 a.m. to
8 p.m. for Maricopa and northwestern Pinal counties... A record high
temperature of 114 degrees was set at Phoenix Sky Harbor on Sunday.
That broke the old record of 113 degrees set in 1933. More record heat
is in the works for Monday, with a forecast high in Phoenix of 113 degrees.

*****

Democrats
Say Leaving Iraq May Take Years 12 Aug 2007 Even as they call
for an end to the war and pledge to bring the troops home, the Democratic
presidential candidates are setting out positions that could leave the
United States engaged in Iraq for years.

Dick
Cheney '94: Invading Baghdad Would Create Quagmire
12 Aug 2007 (video) Transcript:
Q: Do you think the U.S., or U.N. forces, should have moved into Baghdad?
Dick Cheney: No. Q: Why not? A: Because if we'd gone to Baghdad we would
have been all alone. There wouldn't have been anybody else with us.
There would have been a U.S. occupation of Iraq. None of the Arab forces
that were willing to fight with us in Kuwait were willing to invade
Iraq. Once you got to Iraq and took it over, took down Saddam Hussein's
government, then what are you going to put in its place? ...It's
a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq. The other thing
was casualties... And the question for the president, in terms of whether
or not we went on to Baghdad, took additional casualties in an effort
to get Saddam Hussein, was how many additional dead Americans is Saddam
worth? Our judgment was, not very many, and I think we got it right.

'We're
talking tip-of-the-iceberg stuff here.'U.S.
Pays Millions In Cost Overruns For Security in Iraq 12 Aug 2007
The U.S. military has paid $548 million over the past three years to
two British security firms that protect the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
on 'reconstruction' projects, more than $200 million over the original
budget, according to previously undisclosed data that show how the cost
of private security in Iraq has mushroomed. The two companies, Aegis
Defence Services and Erinys Iraq, signed their original Defense Department
contracts in May 2004. By July of this year, the contracts supported
a private force that had grown to about 2,000 employees serving the
Corps of Engineers.

Al
Basrah Oil Terminal Renovation Project Nears Completion 11 Aug
2007 The Gulf Region Division’s oil sector neared the finish line at
the end of July with the final certification of work on the Al Basrah
Oil Terminal. The terminal, known as ABOT, is Iraq’s primary avenue
for crude oil export. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers [US taxpayers]
invested $67.5 million to rehabilitate
the export facility 50 km offshore in the Arabian Gulf. The terminal
was identified in July 2003 as a key facility for immediate repairs
by the Ministry of Oil and the Corp's Task
Force-Restore Iraqi Oil. [Gee, too bad there wasn't $67.5
million for a Corp's 'Task Force-Restore New Orleans.']

Iran,
Iraq sign oil pipeline deal 11 Aug 2007 Iran and Iraq signed
an agreement to build pipelines for the transfer of Iraqi crude oil
and oil products, the state-run Iran news network Saturday quoted the
oil ministry as announcing. The 32-inch (81-centimetre) pipeline will
bring crude from the southern Iraqi port of Basra to the southwestern
Iranian port of Abadan.

Italy
probe unearths huge Iraq arms deal 12 Aug 2007 In Rome's Fiumicino
Airport, police dug quietly through a traveler's checked baggage and
found a catalog of weapons. Their discovery led investigators down a
monthslong trail of telephone and e-mail intercepts, as Iraqi and Italian
partners haggled over shipping more than 100,000 Russian-made automatic
weapons into the bloodbath of Iraq. As the secretive, $40 million deal
neared completion, Italian authorities moved in, making arrests and
breaking it up. The Associated Press has learned that Iraqi government
officials were involved in the deal, apparently without the knowledge
of the U.S. Baghdad command [!?!] — a departure from the usual pattern
of U.S.-overseen arms purchases. Iraqi middlemen in the Italian deal,
in intercepted e-mails, claimed the arrangement had official American
approval.

Sweden
halts Iraq air traffic 11 Aug 2007 All Swedish air traffic to
Iraq has been canceled until further notice, the Swedish Civil Aviation
Authority has announced. The decision was taken on Friday afternoon,
after it was revealed that a Swedish passenger aircraft had been shot
at in north-eastern Iraq as it took off on Wednesday night, according
to Swedish news agency TT.

Army
warns on Basra deaths
12 Aug 2007 Gordon Brown has been warned by senior army officers that
delaying withdrawal from Iraq will lead to an increase in the number
of British troops being killed. Senior officers believe an imminent
concentration of troops in one base at Basra international airport is
bound to lead to the Iraqi militias intensifying their attacks.

US
prepares to plug hole left by British troops 12 Aug 2007 America
is preparing to pour thousands of extra troops into southern Iraq amid
fears that Gordon Brown is committed to withdrawing British troops from
the region early next year. The White House and the Pentagon are understood
to have drawn up detailed plans to secure the vital "umbilical cord"
link road between Baghdad and Kuwait when the British depart.

UN
staff forced back into Iraq to provide 'fig-leaf cover' for US
11 Aug 2007 The United Nations is to return kicking and screaming to
Iraq under an internationally-approved plan for it to have an expanded
political role in support of the Iraqi government. The 15-member UN
security council yesterday unanimously adopted a resolution authorising
the UN to return to Iraq almost four years to the day that it pulled
out most of its staff after a deadly car bomb that killed its envoy.
The resolution, co-sponsored by the US and Britain, will provide a fig-leaf,
if needed, to cover a withdrawal of 'coalition' forces from Iraq in
the coming months, and pick up the pieces afterwards. But the US and
Britain deny any such intention.

5
U.S. Soldiers Killed South of Baghdad 12 Aug 2007 A sniper shot
and killed a U.S. soldier, then lured his comrades to a booby-trapped
house where four more troops were killed in a complex attack believed
to have been the work of al-Qaida in Iraq, a U.S. general said Sunday.

Fatigue
cripples US army in Iraq --Exhaustion and combat stress are
besieging US troops in Iraq as they battle with a new type of warfare.
Some even rely on Red Bull to get through the day. As desertions and
absences increase, the military is struggling to cope with the crisis.
By Peter Beaumont 12 Aug 2007 When the soldiers talk like this there
is resignation. There is a corrosive anger, too, that bubbles out, like
the words pouring unbidden from a chaplain's assistant who has come
to bless a patrol. 'Why don't you tell the truth? Why don't you journalists
write that this army is exhausted?'

Pat
Tillman's Mom Calls Censured General 'The Scapegoat' By Michael
David Smith 11 Aug 2007 Lt. Gen. Philip Kensinger, who was censured
for lying about the death in Afghanistan of former Arizona Cardinals
safety Pat Tillman, says he's being made the fall guy for the Army.
And Mary Tillman, Pat's mom, agrees.

Coalition
base in Afghanistan attacked twice in one day 11 Aug 2007 Taliban
militants attacked an occupation military base in southern Afghanistan
for the second time Saturday and the third time this week, the U.S.-led
occupation said. It warned the ambushes could "possibly be a rehearsal
for a much bigger attack, possibly an attempt to completely overrun
the post."

US
worried about nukes post-Musharraf 11 Aug 2007 A report circulated
by CNN on Friday claims that United States military intelligence officials
are urgently assessing how secure Pakistan’s nuclear weapons would be
if President General Pervez Musharraf were to leave office. The US
has full knowledge about the location of Pakistan's nuclear weapons,
according to the assessment. But the key questions, officials told CNN,
are what would happen and who would control the weapons in the hours
after any change in government in case General Musharraf were killed
or overthrown. The United States is not certain
as to who might start controlling nuclear launch codes and weapons if
that shift in power were to take place.

Joint
war games on despite Left protests: Govt 12 Aug 2007 Even if
it leaves the Left red in the face, the government has no intention
of rolling back the forthcoming gigantic five-nation naval war games
in the Bay of Bengal, with the US as a major participant.

Palestinians
arrest al-Qaeda 'poseurs'08 Dec 2002 Palestinian security
forces have arrested a group of Palestinians for collaborating
with Israel and posing as operatives of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist
network, a senior official said yesterday. The arrests come
two days after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon charged al-Qaeda
militants were operating in Gaza and in Lebanon. "The Palestinian Authority
arrested a group of collaborators who confessed they were working for
Israel, posing as al-Qaeda operatives in the Palestinian territories,"
said the official, on condition of anonymity. The official did not say
how many suspects had been arrested, nor where or when they were nabbed.

Police
to use terror laws on Heathrow climate protesters --Government
has encouraged use of stop and search and detention without charge
11 Aug 2007 Armed police will use anti-terrorism powers to "deal
robustly" with climate change protesters at Heathrow next week... Up
to 1,800 extra officers will be drafted in to prevent an estimated 1,500
people disrupting the airport over the period of the camp for climate
change, which is due to begin on Tuesday. The police report makes it
clear that the government has encouraged police forces to make greater
use of terrorism powers "especially the use of stop and search powers
under s44 Terrorism Act 2000".

New
York City Police Scale Back Checkpoints
12 Aug 2007 The New York City police scaled back its deployment of additional
security checkpoints and radiological sensors in Lower Manhattan yesterday,
after determining that a report of a possible radioactive attack against
the city was unsubstantiated. The messages, according to Debka.com [a
Jerusalem-based site], detailed planned attacks against New York, Los
Angeles and Miami using trucks carrying radioactive bombs.

Israeli
web site sparks terror alert 11 Aug 2007 New York authorities
returned the alertness level to normal after having taken extra counterterrorism
precautions over the weekend in response to what they said was an unsubstantiated
radiological threat to the city reported by the Israeli Web site, DEBKAfile.

Terror
threat Web site called unreliable 12 Aug 2007 The reported threat
of a dirty bomb attack in New York City that led to heightened security
this weekend came from a Jerusalem-based Web site [DEBKAfile] that claims
more than a million daily readers, but is criticized by intelligence
experts as unreliable.

Canadian
Bar Association calls for Khadr's release 12 Aug 2007 The Canadian
Bar Association is calling for a Canadian detainee held at a U.S. military
prison to be immediately released and turned over to Canada. The Bar
Association is urging Prime Minister Stephen Harper to call on the U.S.
government to turn 20-year-old Omar Khadr over to Canadian law enforcement
officials to be dealt with under Canadian law. In a letter to Harper,
CBA President J. Parker MacCarthy warns that continuing to hold Khadr
in Guantanamo Bay is an affront to the rule of law.

CD-ROM
tracks hatred and terrorism websites 11 Aug 2007 A new study
lists a white supremacist website and an online jihad group as two of
Canada's most problematic sources of hate and terror on the Internet.
The Simon Wiesenthal Centre for Holocaust Studies' Digital Terrorism
and Hate 2007 CD-ROM report is an international effort involving researchers
in Los Angeles, Toronto, Jerusalem, Paris, New York and Buenos Aires.
It compiles more than 600 of the world's most troubling websites. [LOL!
They have a feature: 'Report a Terrorist or Hate Site Now.' Send digitalhate@wiesenthal.net
your suggestions! I submitted whitehouse.gov and dhs.gov.]

Race
attacks soar after terror strike 12 Aug 2007 Racist incidents
across Scotland have soared following the terrorist attack on Glasgow
Airport. New figures reveal a surge in cases of violent attacks, abuse
and harassment in the four weeks after the car bombing, with the worst
cases including attempts to blow up an Asian shop and a mosque. The
biggest increase has been recorded in the Strathclyde region, where
there were more than 250 incidents, of which more than 10% were directly
linked to the airport

Protesters
show up in force near Cheney home 12 Aug 2007 Some 200 people
gathered in a Wilson field Saturday afternoon for a "Peace Rally" to
protest the Iraq war and send a message to Vice President [sic] Dick
Cheney, who owns a home just up the road.

Romney
Jokes About Cheating in Poll By Garance Franke-Ruta 11 Aug 2007
Last night, at the pre-Straw Poll "Ronstock" concert at the Bali Satay
House in Ames, a Ron Paul volunteer played back a recording of competing
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney joking about cheating
in a State Fair popularity contest, stuffing the ballot box in Ames,
and dodging questions across the state... Romney also joked about stuffing
the ballot box at today's Straw Poll. "At 7 o'clock they will count
the ballots. We will stuff the ballot box,
I hope," he said on the recording. And he joked about cheating
in the Corn
Poll, the bi-partisan State Fair popularity contest in which attendees
are asked to "cast your kernel" by placing a kernel of corn in a jar
for their favored candidate to show their support. "I was a little dismayed
because I saw Barack Obama, he had a lot of corn in that Mason jar,"
quipped Romney. "But I was number one - so thanks for cheating!"

Romney
Leadership Team Member Overseeing Straw Poll By Birdlady 09
Aug 2007 The Iowa GOP is facing possible suit over their use of the
same Diebold machines that were just de-certified.
They are claiming of course, that there is nothing
to worry about since the voting procedure will be conducted with
the assistance and oversight of the Story County Auditor's Office. If
we look here,
we see the Story County Auditor is Mary Mosiman. Mary Mosiman also happens
to be on Mitt Romney's "Romney for President [Story County] Leadership
Team"... It's also worth noting that according to this article,
Romney's Commonwealth PAC gave State Auditor David A. Vaudt $1,000 in
2004.

Voting
Machine Malfunction Causes Delay
11 Aug 2007 The results of the Iowa Republican Straw poll have been
delayed for more than an hour tonight as officials recount about 1,500
ballots from one 'voting' machine. Mary Tiffany, a spokeswoman for the
Republican Party of Iowa, said officials were forced to count ballots
by hand after one of the 'voting' machines malfunctioned while tabulating.
Optical scan ballots – not punch cards – are being used in this non-binding
straw poll.

Judge
Refuses to Stop Iowa Straw Poll 11 Aug 2007 A
federal judge on Friday refused to issue an injunction to stop the Iowa
Straw Poll after a lawsuit was filed over the constitutionality of the
'voting' process used at the event. "In the absence of some
legal violation, the Republican Party can run their (event) however
they want," Judge James Gritzner said in his decision, which quickly
followed the hearing because the straw poll was scheduled to start Saturday
morning. The lawsuit was filed late Thursday, and the judge said there
wasn't adequate notice given to the defendants, who were served early
Friday morning. The defendants included State Auditor David Vaudt, Story
County Commissioner of Elections [Romney troll] Mary
Mosiman and Republican Party Chairman Ray Hoffmann.

Romney
Solicits Straw Poll Votes from Democratic Campaign Staffers
11 Aug 2007 The campaign of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney actively
solicited Straw Poll votes from staff members of at least two Democratic
presidential campaigns in the days leading up to the Straw Poll here
in Ames. Multiple sources confirm that, days before the Straw Poll,
paid staff members from the Mitt Romney for President campaign entered
more than one Democratic campaign field office in Ames to invite the
paid staff in those offices to vote for Gov. Romney at the event.

Romney
Wins Iowa GOP Straw Poll 11 Aug 2007 As expected, former Massachusetts
Gov. Mitt Romney 'won' an easy victory in a high-profile Iowa Republican
Party Straw Poll. Romney had spent millions of dollars and months of
effort on an event that was skipped by two of his major rivals.

RNC
Voter "Audit" Letter Raises Questions By Paul Kiel 10 Aug 2007
What 83 year-old William Sidwell of Queen City, Missouri found in his
mailbox last week scared him. It was a letter from the Republican National
Committee, but it seemed to bear grave news: "Our records show that
you registered as a member of our Party in Schuyler County, MO," the
letter said. "But a recent audit of your Party affiliation turned up
some irregularities." Audit? Irregularities? Was he in trouble? Were
they threatening him? ...You can see the letter, and the accompanying
"Voter Registration Verification and Audit Form," right
here... The letter, it turns out, is just a misleading pitch for
a contribution to the RNC -- one of the "irregularities" cited in the
letter is that "I cannot find a record of you taking a single action
in support of the Republican Party -- not locally, not nationally!"

Robert
Murray, Murray Energy chairman, is GOP backer
07 Aug 2007 The chairman of the Ohio-based company that owns the Utah
coal mine where six workers are trapped is a strong Republican backer...
and an outspoken critic of concerns about global warming. Robert E.
Murray and Murray Energy Corp.'s political action committee have been
active contributors to GOP candidates. The Murray Energy Corp. Political
Action Committee has given more than $155,000
to Republican candidates, including $30,000 to the National Republican
Senatorial Committee, since 2005, according to Federal Election Commission
records.

Mine
company CEO sues W.Va. Democrats 11 Aug 2007 A mine company
executive sued the state Democratic Party over a TV ad that he claims
defamed him by quoting him as saying the deaths of 14 miners last year
were statistically insignificant. A methane explosion at International
Coal Group's Sago Mine killed 12 men in northern West Virginia on Jan.
2, 2006. Seventeen days later, a conveyer belt fire at Massey's Aracoma
Alma No. 1 Mine in southern West Virginia killed two miners. The newspaper
quoted Blankenship, a registered Republican who spent $3.6
million targeting Democratic candidates in 2006 elections,
as saying he believed that the type of explosion that occurred in the
two accidents is rare and statistically insignificant.

Draft
air permit to get public comment soon 11 Aug 2007 Carbon monoxide
emissions from the BP oil refinery in Lake County will rise significantly
under a final draft air pollution permit that's due to receive public
review soon, a report today said. BP officials told The Times of Hammond
that carbon monoxide, a major contributor to ground-level ozone, will
be the only pollutant to increase under the new permit... The draft
permit is being reviewed by BP officials and should soon be opened to
public comment, managers of the oil giant said in an interview with
The Times.

Winnipeg
polar bear oldest in world
11 Aug 2007 A Winnipeg zoo is home to the world's oldest living polar
bear, Guinness World Records says. Debby, who lives at Winnipeg's Assiniboine
Park Zoo, is 40 years old — double the life expectancy of most polar
bears that live in the wild. At a celebration of her Guinness record
later this month, zookeepers plan to feed Debby some of her favourite
treats — smoked goldeye fish, veggie dogs and a fish frozen inside
a block of ice. [Quick action! Tell
the Bush Administration to protect polar bears and their critical habitat.]